


The Lost: Redux

by argle_fraster, astrangerenters



Series: The Lost [2]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Angst, F/M, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-26 06:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 29
Words: 50,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster, https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost: Redux is a series of inter-connecting stories written for the Lost universe that take place before, during, and after the story's completion.</p><p>Stories vary in rating and subject matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Diplomas - Nino/Matsuoka

**Author's Note:**

> We've sort of felt that throughout The Lost, it really wasn't a story about Arashi or zombies- it was more about people in general; what they are capable of, the strength in humanity, and how some people shine even in the darkest of situations. The expansion of the universe really let us highlight that more, because rebuilding is harder than tearing it down.
> 
> This was originally written/posted in 2009.

The blackboard chalk ledge was digging into Nino's back.

"Ow," he hissed, and the complaint was largely ignored- he should have at least positioned himself better, considering he'd known what he was walking into. His paper hadn't been terrible at all; in fact, he'd gotten a B-. It was probably a higher grade than the actual work had deserved- especially considering that he'd typed it up in a half hour before class had started- but he wasn't about to mention that he was getting favored when there were fingers working their way beneath the waistband of his pants.

"Conference in ten minutes," Sensei breathed against his neck. "Gotta be there."

Nino looked up at the clock, which conveniently gave Sensei enough room to start sucking on his neck. He hoped the man wasn't going to leave marks- his collar wasn't high enough to cover them. He pushed at Sensei's shoulders a bit to get him to shift, and the man did- to his ear, to the sensitive skin trailing his jaw. "Okay."

It came out as kind of a half-groan, half-gasp, which was in and of itself just a bit embarrassing, but made infinitely worse when long fingers closed around his length. Jesus. He had to leave the classroom in ten minutes, and unless Sensei worked fast, there was definitely no way he was going to be able to waltz out.

"Sensei," he breathed, and then the man claimed his mouth again, hand curling all the way around his cock, and Nino thought wildly that he had a pretty good shot at making the deadline.

\--

He took up the habit of smoking on the roof after class, to waste time until the rest of the teachers left and he could slip back down to Sensei's office. He was finishing up his last one when Sensei actually found him up there, and Nino didn't turn around, flicking the butt off the side.

"Have to head home early, tonight," Sensei said. Nino didn't have to see him to know how he was standing- hands shoved in his pockets, trying to look like he didn't care. He obviously did. His presence behind Nino's seated form was proof enough.

"Are you going to leave her?"

There wasn't a response. The moments of silence that ticked by were exactly the answer Nino had been expecting- the same reply he'd gotten the last ten times he'd asked the exact same question. It wasn't going to change; the more he asked, the more he realized that. And deep down, somewhere, he knew what that meant. He just couldn't fully believe it yet.

He kicked a bit at the railing. It hurt, but he laughed anyway. "Fuck you."

"Don't do this," Sensei sighed.

"Little late for that now," Nino snapped.

He expected something, but there was just another period of quiet, and the figure nearer the door moved until Sensei was standing directly behind him. Nino leaned back a little, shoulders settling against the man's legs.

"Should just go with you," Nino mumbled. Sensei's wife would get the shock of her life. But they couldn't go to his place, and they couldn't go to Nino's, either- what would Nino tell his mother? Hi, mom, school was fine, this is my teacher, just ignore any moans you hear coming from my bedroom, thanks.

Sensei made a noise that sounded like a mirthless chuckle had gotten caught in his throat. "We're going to get caught here, sometime."

"So get a hotel room," Nino said, irritably. He pulled out the box of cigarettes again; he was going to need another one if this was the direction the afternoon was heading in.

Then there were hands on his shoulders, kneading the muscles there. He hissed a little, but didn't light the cigarette, letting the man continue what he was doing- it felt good.

"You're too tense," Sensei murmured, and Nino swatted at his head. "C'mon. I can be a little late- I'll get a room."

Nino shoved the cigarette box back in his pocket, and stood up to follow.

\--

The sheets weren't even that high count- not like it made much difference when they were twisted around in his hands, coiled between his fingers. It gave him something to hold onto, at least, when he was struggling to keep himself up on all fours.

He could only hear his own ragged breathing, and the sound of Sensei's hips smacking into his ass. "Don't go home tonight," Nino groaned.

He got a garbled hiss in response, and a harder thrust that made him wince slightly. But he wasn't done, and he wasn't giving up- he had enough on the line. He was sick of playing second, and he was going to make damn sure the situation changed in his favor.

"Don't go home," he repeated, and clenched as tightly as he could. He was rewarded with a breathy moan. "Leave her."

"Yes," Sensei hissed, and then, "God, yes, yes, I will-"

It was the best orgasm he'd had in a very long time.

\--

Sensei- or, Matsuoka, as Nino had been instructed to call him, despite the fact that he never, ever had- was late. He was supposed to be there a half an hour ago. Nino checked his watch again- more than half an hour ago. He had the bus tickets in his hand, and it was going to leave soon, and Sensei wasn't there.

And Nino was finally beginning to realize in the pit of his stomach what he'd known all along, what he'd known and simply not accepted because it wasn't the answer that he wanted.

Sensei wasn't coming.

As far as Nino could tell, he had three options. He could get on the bus alone and just go, just leave- but what would he do on his own? He could go to Sensei's house and beat the door down, but in the long run, that wasn't going to do him much good either.

Nino's hands were shaking around the bag he'd packed. His third option was starting to formulate in his mind, wriggling around his thoughts. He'd been promised- for fuck's sake, Sensei had promised him. He'd leave her, he'd leave it all behind. And there Nino was, standing alone in a bus station at ass-o-clock at night, feeling like a damn fool.

He took the last train home, shoved the still-packed duffel under his bed, and went to school the next day as if nothing had happened.

\--

Sensei didn't look at him during class. His gaze carefully went in any other direction but Nino's, settling on the students around him and the curtains banging gently against the window. Nino had expected this- it made his plan easier. He was a good actor, but he didn't want the man to be getting any ideas.

He waited until the rest of the students had filed out, and then approached Sensei at his desk. The man was trying his best to look busy, but Nino knew him better than that. He knew the curve of his waist and the slope of his shoulders by heart.

"So, I guess you got busy last night," he started.

Sensei was shuffling some papers. "Look, Ninomiya, we need to-"

"Yeah, we need to talk," Nino said. "But we aren't going to. I dropped out. Today was my last day of high school."

That stopped him. Sensei looked up, confusion written all over his face. Maybe he was going to say something- but Nino wasn't going to give him the chance.

"It's been rad," Nino continued, "but I'm going to be a director. I have big dreams, and you'll only hold me back. I'm going to save up and move to America."

He paused, running his hands through the back of his hair, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. "I thought about telling your wife, but I figured maybe she should hear that from you. Which she will, I can only assume, because she'll be interested to know why it was you got fired today."

He was already walking backwards slowly when he heard the rap of knuckles against the door to the classroom. Sensei's face had gone very white, mouth slightly slack.

"Mm," Nino said. "I had a talk with the principal this morning."

His back hit the windows that connected to the door, and he paused, saluting a little in Sensei's direction. "I gave him some great details. I believe that's him, waiting with your termination papers."

He didn't really feel disappointed as he left the school grounds. He didn't really feel anything, but he knew that someday, eventually, he'd keenly feel the knife that was still twisting in his back.

\--

He got a job at a department store in the electronics section the next day. It wasn't games, but it was close enough, and he could walk to the game store on his breaks to check out the new shipments.

And when he saved up enough money, he was moving to America.


	2. Chance Encounters

Mao found him standing by the vending machine in Furihata Hall, head leaning against the side of it because the slight buzzing from the structure rattled through his bones and gave him something to focus on other than the fact that he was failing Macro Theory- miserably- and had his first tutoring session tomorrow.

"There's a few of us going out tonight," she said, neutrally. Mao was a cute girl- doe eyes, pretty hair- and they'd gone out with the group a couple of times already. The last time they went to an Indie concert at one of the Thai joints, he'd looped his fingers through hers and she held his hand on the way back to the student dormitories. He liked her; she had an addictive little giggle and a good-natured smile.

"Mm," he said, non-committally. A drink sounded good. Scratch that, five drinks sounded good. He'd had another meeting with the professor about his rapidly dropping grade and the effects it could have on his scholarship- which wasn't much, and he needed every bit of it. "Where?"

Mao shrugged a little bit, head tilting to one side so locks of dark hair splayed over her backpack strap. "I think we're playing it by ear, there's nothing really decided yet. I thought maybe you'd like to go with."

"Sure."

She gave him her sweet grin, but even that couldn't completely alleviate the tightness that had been forming in his chest since the email three days ago about his "need to schedule a visit during office hours".

"You seem kind of down," she said, astutely.

Jun let his head bang against the vending machine lightly once, for good measure. He really wasn't ready to talk about it yet; more than anything else, he wasn't ready to admit that he was failing a core class in his major of study and had absolutely no idea what he would do with himself should the grade hold through until finals.

"Lot on my mind," he answered, finally, after a long silence and the hum of the machine next to him. "Not a big deal. Where should I meet everyone tonight?"

Mao's fingers curled around the strap thrown over her shoulder. "We'll come and pick you up in your room- a couple of the guys live on the floor below you anyway. See you around 8?"

"Okay."

She waved when she left the building, disappearing into the crowd of students exiting the lecture hall doors that had just opened, and Jun stayed where he was, staring balefully across the corridor to the signboard on the opposite wall with tacked up fliers.

_Student Tutors Available- Call the Board of Student Affairs for Information!_

\--

Mao, Eita, and Tamaki showed up a little after 8, as Jin was shrugging on some bizarre half-fur poncho and blaring techno music in iTunes as loud as his laptop speakers would allow. Jun felt the need to apologize as soon as he opened the door.

"No worries," Eita said. "We'll probably lose hearing tonight anyway, you know how loud the places around here like to get the bass."

"Are you going out?" Jin asked, popping up from behind Jun's shoulder.

"I told you three times already I was," Jun answered. He was already irritated; the music hadn't helped his mood any, and he really just wanted a drink. Preferably something strong and large. Maybe several.

Jin ignored this comment completely, as he did with most everything Jun said to him. "Well, you guys should come with me. There's this new club opening up down on Shinjuku-dori, and I'm catching some friends there."

Jun opened his mouth to say thanks, but no thanks, because Jin's suggestions were rarely worth taking him up on, but Tamaki looked interested, and Mao was already nodding.

"Alright," Tamaki agreed. "You leaving now?"

"Half a sec," Jin promised, disappearing behind the door in the room again as Jun struggled with a way to get out of the evening altogether. He probably had a bottle of Jack stashed somewhere in his dresser, if Jin hadn't already found it and drained it dry- he could just stay in and drown his sorrows on his own, and then he wouldn't have to deal with Jin's antics or the exceptionally loud woofer he knew would be present (as it was in any location that Jin's friends found fit to frequent).

Jin reappeared a few minutes later, after Jun had sent several apologetic looks in Mao's direction. "A'ight, let's blow this popsicle stand."

"You sure you're alright?" Mao asked, as Jin stuck his key in the door and clicked the lock into place. "You look kind of pale."

"Just hope you all know what you are getting yourselves into," Jun muttered. The two fell into step behind Tamaki and Eita, who Jin was engaging in a conversation about American exchange students and how "easy" they were.

Mao smiled up at him, eyes shining through dark bangs. "It'll be fun, I promise."

\--

Two hours, four drinks, and three American exchange students later, it still hadn't gotten to "fun" yet. In fact, Jun was drinking faster in hopes that Jin and his "translating"- even Jun could tell that he wasn't hitting anywhere close to the mark when attempting to decipher what his new American friends were saying- became magically more interesting. Mao looked vaguely scandalized; Jin had done a couple of body shots off the girls, and her eyes had gotten impossibly round.

At least whatever the bar-tender was making was decently strong. The buzz was helping to take the edge off of the loud Emo Punk music the DJ was currently on a kick with, and he hoped it continued, because the rest of Jin's friends had shown up. He could only assume that anyone who willingly hung out with his roommate was similar to him, and Jun wasn't entirely sure how he was going to handle that much "personality" at the same time in a small corner booth.

"No, no, no," Jin was saying with exaggerated hand gestures ("no" was one of the only words he really knew in English, which Jun found painfully ironic). "Salt BEFORE shot."

"Is he really explaining how to take a tequila shot?" Tamaki muttered, seated on Jun's right.

Jun wasn't sure how American exchange students hadn't done something like that before- hadn't that entire idea originated over there, anyway? But his drink was low, and his head was starting to spin, and the situation seemed much less annoying when his focus darted all over the place.

"We are starting a study group for the mid-term," Mao said, and Jun only caught half of it. She poked him in the side to get his attention, making him jump. "Are you listening?"

"Sorry," he said.

She was frowning a little. "You should come and study with us. We meet in the library on Thursday nights. Eita's got a whole study guide written up from the notes already."

Jun didn't think a study guide was going to help him much, with the way his tests had been going. He wasn't barely missing the C- he was light years away from a passing grade.

"I don't know," he tried. He wasn't sure how much he could explain without being forced to admit that he was failing- and he knew he didn't want to do that. His tongue felt thick, like it kept bumping against the roof of his mouth.

"Oh, come on," Mao said, teasing. "We'll all be there. It'll be great."

Eita leaned in, nearly sloshing half his beer on Jun's lap with the movement. "Speaking of which, what did you think about the essay questions on the last exam? Crazy wild, huh? I thought they totally came out of left field."

"You aced the last exam," Mao laughed. She chucked a crumpled napkin at his head.

"Doesn't mean I saw those questions coming!" Eita protested, and Jun stared down at the ice in the bottom of his glass, faintly colored with the remainder of the rum. He stood, thighs smacking into the edge of the table and rattling all of the glasses on the surface.

"Need another drink," he explained, holding up his empty glass.

He just wanted to get away. Maybe it had been a bad idea to go out with people from class- they were a nice, neat little group, and he felt like the odd man out. How was it that no one else was having the problems he was with the course material? Why was he the only one struggling and forced to get a tutor from the damn Student Affairs office?

Jin found him at the bar, near the half-eaten bowl of peanuts. "Hey, you should meet my friend."

"Met your friends already," Jun mumbled. He motioned for the bartender to get him another one.

"No, you should meet her," Jin said, and even in Jun's state, he caught onto the emphasis of her. "She thinks you're hot."

Jun turned to see a girl with shoulder-length hair and heavy eye-makeup standing behind him. She gave him a coy grin, one hand already settling in on his shoulder, and behind her, Jin was mouthing something obscene and pointing at her behind.

"I'm Masami," she said. "I think we need some shots."

\--

He lost track of the shots. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how many he'd had- especially not after seeing Mao's disappointed look from the booth where she was still sitting next to Tamaki. Masami had somehow gotten herself up on Jun's lap after he half-fell, half-sat on one of the bar stools; her legs were curled around the back and her hands were running up and down his neck.

"Let's go somewhere," she whispered near his ear, and it sent twinges all the way down to his stomach, which he could still feel despite the fact that he was numb just about everywhere else. His hands had been on her hips, her thighs, her waist- for the past ten minutes.

And he was pretty sure he would have agreed to anything that anybody asked him at that point. "Okay."

They somehow stumbled from the club and managed to avoid the cars. Jun couldn't have pointed which way was up; Masami was faring a little better, and could at least walk in a semi-straight line.

Maybe he fell, maybe he tripped. He found himself up against the wall with a hand against the brick to hold him upright, his other hand on his head in an vain attempt to keep the world from spinning out from under his feet. There were hands on the sides of his face, and warm lips on his jaw.

"Don't know how to get back to my dorm," he slurred.

"I'm not going to your dorm," she replied. She sounded a bit offended.

It took a minute for the statement to sink in. "Wait, what?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you," she said.

Jun stared at her for a minute; there were two of her, a hazy double vision that was dancing and moving with the streetlights and the moving duality of cars driving past.

"Your hand was in my pants," he said.

Masami took a step back, hands on her hips like he'd said something terrible about her character, despite the fact that it was entirely true and he had the hard-on to prove it. "So what?"

Jun stepped away from the wall, waving his hand at her in the only dismissive gesture he could come up with in his fuzzy state. "You know what? Screw it. God. I don't care. Do whatever."

"Aren't you going to walk me home?" She actually stomped a foot against the ground.

"No."

Her indignant sputtering followed him for blocks, but it took him so long to find his dorm again that it all blurred together into the stretch of time he couldn't identify later.

\--

He woke up the next morning ten minutes before his tutoring session was supposed to start with a raging headache and a mouth that tasted like bile. He barely even had time to throw a hat over his hair- which he didn't even run a hand through- and throw on a sweatshirt before racing to the Student Services building. How he made it there without throwing up in the bushes, he honestly didn't know.

He'd actually passed out on his arms when his tutor walked in the small study room they'd been assigned.

"Are you Matsumoto Jun?" the guy asked, and when Jun cracked his eyelids open to look, his heart sunk impossibly low in his stomach. He was- well, he was good-looking. Ridiculously good-looking. Wide smile, bright eyes. And Jun just kind of stared across the table at him, hungover and tongue-tied.

He was almost positive that his jeans still reeked of the beer that'd been spilled on him.

"Sorry," the guy apologized, looking a little flustered. "Are you not feeling well?"

"What?"

The tutor pulled out a chair to sit across the table from Jun. "Are you sick?"

"No," Jun said, and then, wincing, "sort of."

"Okay. I'm Sakurai Sho. I was assigned to be your Macro Theory tutor."

All Jun could think was that his luck had to be hitting an all-time low; he'd grabbed a random hat just to throw something on his head, he was barely managing to keep from passing out in a stupor again, he stank of beer and cheap tequila, and Sakurai Sho was quite possibly the most amazing person he'd ever met.

Jun was completely and totally fucked.

And he wasn't just talking about his already dismal Macro grade.


	3. The Right Choices

Most students went out on weekends, getting drunk in bars near campus, in nightclubs far from campus. Even his fellow grad students, saddled with a less carefree existence – papers to grade, dissertations to plan, endless reading – well, they still found time to get out from time to time on the weekend.

Sho went home, without fail, every weekend. His sister had just started her own studies at Keio, following in her elder brother’s footsteps. Not that Sho’s footsteps hadn’t been planned out from the moment he was born. His little brother was in elementary school, and it was Sho’s responsibility to assist with the kid’s homework – give his mother a break for a day.

His room was the same as he left it the Sunday before, his CD collection organized by genre and then by artist. He was granted time to work on his studies – but there were expectations for the remainder of his time. Every meal was together, the five of them, and there was the necessity of post-dinner conversation. A discussion of current events, books his mother had recommended he read, politics.

Especially politics. His father was high-up, influential. It wasn’t something Sho gave much thought to – the man was just his father, as he always had been. But when he’d decided to continue his education after Keio, and at a public university at that, well, the relationship had soured a bit. Dinner was quieter, post-meal conversations always came back to the future. Sho’s future.

He was in his first year of postgraduate studies, and truth be told, he wasn’t really sure what his plans were once he received his Master’s degree. Sho liked economics – he liked seeing how the slightest change in a country’s fortunes, for good or bad, could reach the lives of every person, have an effect on everything. It wasn’t something that translated into a career.

And thus each weekend home became more of a vice tightening around his leg. His mother would ask how his dissertation was progressing, if he’d found the right faculty to be on the committee to evaluate him next year. He’d found a few. But his father didn’t ask about his studies, what he hoped to accomplish with his dissertation, what theories he wanted to challenge and explore.

“On summer break, the treasury’s having a career shadowing program for statisticians. I can get you in without a need for recommendation letters.”

Sho didn’t think he wanted to be a statistician. And he sure as hell didn’t want to get into the program just because of family connections. He’d already breezed through the Keio feeder schools and then the university that way – wasn’t that why he applied to a public university for his graduate studies in the first place? Even though his father had called up Keio, even called up Waseda.

“I’ll think about it,” was the only response Sho could give, not meeting his father’s eyes as he headed up to his room to study.

\--

This term was not going according to plan. There were too many graduate students available and not enough courses for them to assist with – Sho would not be teaching. He wouldn’t even be grading. If he wanted to get into a doctoral program (and he wasn’t really sure if he did), then he needed instruction experience to be competitive.

He moped for a day. Moped for one more, wondering why the hell Takizawa got to grade for Professor Kusanagi’s micro class. He was out almost every night – wasn’t Sho the more reliable, dependable choice? Finally, defeat accepted, he went to the Student Affairs building. If he couldn’t assist with a class, then he’d have to go for one on one instruction. Tutoring would never look as good as being a teaching assistant, but it was better than nothing.

They assigned him an undergraduate who was failing macro. He just hoped he’d show up for the first tutoring session.

\--

He was exhausted. Matsumoto just could not get it – Sho wondered why he’d even chosen economics for his course of study. Maybe he would change courses halfway through the term. A lot of students did that here – Keio was far stricter about things like that.

In addition to his own studies, he spent 3 hours at a pop twice a week trying to coach Matsumoto through his homework. He didn’t want a tutor, that was abundantly clear. He was argumentative, and Sho was rude right back at him. Maybe it was a bad match. Student Affairs paired people up randomly. He could petition for a switch – but if he couldn’t even get one kid to pass a class, how could he be trusted next term with a whole group of students?

His mother asked him how the tutoring was going. He just shook his head. If he had a stack of papers or homework assignments, he could write suggestions, comments for students he only interacted with through emails.

Matsumoto was face-to-face with him for hours. All he cared about was passing, not about doing well. Sho had tried hard his whole life to be at the top of his class. He didn’t understand people who were happy enough with average grades, people who just wanted to learn enough to pass an exam and then forget about it.

“Deadline for the summer program is next week,” his father noted at dinner. It was the only time he spoke to Sho for the remainder of the weekend.

\--

The deadline passed.

“What are you doing this summer?” he asked Matsumoto during a session one afternoon, sitting in his roommate’s desk chair while the other man typed things into his calculator.

“Probably getting a seasonal job. I don’t know. You?”

He blinked. “Well, we usually go to the house in Gunma.”

Jun turned in his chair, staring at him strangely. “What do you mean house in Gunma? You guys have a second house?”

“Well, yeah. It’s our vacation house.” Was that so weird? Apparently it was.

Matsumoto turned back to his own desk. “That why you study econ?”

“Huh?”

Jun was chuckling. “To see how the other half lives?”

He frowned, looking at the linoleum. “I don’t…I…”

The tutoring didn’t go so well that day either.

\--

Matsumoto’s words had struck him, and he took a look around when he got home that weekend. At the maid service that cleaned the house, at his father’s study with the antique oak desk, and his mother’s study with the picture window and bookshelves. They had the nicest, newest appliances in the kitchen.

Sho himself always had pocket money, the family had season tickets for the Giants and they didn’t even like baseball. “Ugh,” he groaned, leaning back in his desk chair. Maybe it was why he studied economics, why financial downturns and their effect on people were something he was interested in learning more about. Because he’d never had to worry about it himself.

He’d always gone to school with people similar to himself. Always mingled in the same social circles, always went to the holiday parties his father’s career and position necessitated they attend. And all it had taken was Jun’s reaction to their vacation home to make him feel ashamed.

Sho left the envelope of money his parents always left on the kitchen counter for him behind when he headed back to campus that night.

\--

He decided to meet Matsumoto on his own terms. It was strange, taking the complex theories and not asking Jun to parrot them back. Instead, Sho stayed up past midnight, trying to summarize the main points in language Jun would understand rather than the academic, footnote-littered mess that their textbooks were.

And surprisingly enough, it worked.

There were different eyes behind Jun’s glasses as Sho watched him outline essay questions. They weren’t as indifferent as they’d been the first several sessions – he was engaged, interested in the material. And for the first time, Sho felt genuine pride in his ability to teach. This wasn’t writing out the correct answers on exams and dropping them in the professor’s mailbox. He was actually teaching, really teaching.

Jun returned to tutoring a few days later with a smile Sho hadn’t seen on him before. It was infectious, and Sho felt warmth tingling through his limbs. “I think I passed,” Jun said, almost blushing. “There’s no way I failed it. Thanks. Thank you so much, really.”

“Well, passing is great,” he answered, trying to look a bit stern. “But I want you to kick the next test’s ass so badly your professor wonders if you cheated.”

“I wouldn’t want him to think that,” Jun answered, still beaming from ear to ear. Matsumoto held out his hand. “Really, thank you.”

Sho felt his mouth go dry, as all the liquids within his body had suddenly decided to go straight to his hand and make it sweaty. He bit his lip and shook Jun’s hand anyhow. What kind of senpai would he be to leave him hanging? “You’re welcome,” he mumbled.

“I…” Jun hesitated, and Sho felt like the tension had changed. He really didn’t know how to explain it. “I probably passed this exam, but I…I’m sure the next unit’s going to kill me. I get that you have a lot to do as a grad student but…”

Sho shook his head. How else would he get experience with teaching? “If you need help, just ask.” They stood quietly for a few moments, unsure how to continue. What was wrong with him?

“Well,” Jun said, “I have a night class so…”

“Oh, sorry,” he stuttered out, letting Jun get past him out the tutoring room door.

\--

He was eating too quickly. There’d still be the required family time – tonight they were planning their Christmas holidays. His mother wanted to go to the vacation home to enjoy the snow, but his father wanted to go to Thailand or Malaysia, some beach resort. It would be a long discussion, and Sho didn’t really care either way. Jun had another important exam in less than a week, and it was Sho’s responsibility to make sure that he passed.

When had he become just Jun? Why wasn’t he Matsumoto, the undergrad he tutored? This bothered Sho, far more than choosing between Japan and southeast Asia for Christmas holidays. At least his future was far more certain, now more than it ever had been.

His father was cutting his steak into smaller and smaller pieces. “Sho, your mother tells me you’re planning to pursue a doctoral degree.”

He took a sip of water and nodded. “I think teaching is a good path for me.” Helping Jun, seeing real results in his grades and in his effort towards his studies had changed Sho for the better. “As a professor, I think I could really make a difference.”

His mother just smiled to herself, helping his little brother get his steak cut. She was a professor herself – surely she’d be a great supporter. But in the end, he never really had to try that hard to earn his mother’s praise. It was the other parent who took more convincing.

“How long’s a program like that?” his father continued, face neutral and unemotional, just like he was during sessions in the Diet.

“Depends.”

“How long, Sho?”

He looked at his plate. “Five, seven years. It really depends on the research you’re doing.”

“I think Sho would be a good teacher,” his brother said. “He’s already a know-it-all.”

“You’ll be nearly thirty when you’re done. And what are the career prospects?”

“I…”

“What if you want to get married?” his father continued, his face still completely unfeeling. “What woman would marry a student? Where would you live?”

“Father…”

“What if you can’t secure a position when you graduate? Will you be a parasite to your mother and myself?”

He set down his fork. “May I be excused?”

His mother gave him a warning look, and his father just chewed on his food. He finally swallowed, leveling Sho with a stare. “You may not.”

The dining room was completely silent. After dinner, his father stood, setting his napkin down neatly on the table.

“I’ll look into a resort in Phuket for the holidays. I’ll be in my study.”

\--

Jun received a B- on the exam.

Sho received the shock of his life shortly thereafter. And like a moron, like a coward, he ran.

\--

His father’s office with the rows and rows of books seemed almost cavernous this late in the evening. He was reading the newspaper at his own pace although Sho had been standing there for nearly five minutes. Finally, he set the financial section down and met his son’s eyes.

“Your mother tells me that the tutoring program called the house, wondering if you’d resigned without notice.”

It was Sho’s own fault – he’d put his home telephone number on the form instead of his cell phone number by mistake. The truth was that Jun hadn’t shown up for the past several sessions, and a visit to the academic affairs office let him know that Matsumoto Jun had transferred to accounting, effective immediately.

His father didn’t wait for an answer. “It reflects poorly on you as a man if you don’t own up to your responsibilities. It will also reflect poorly on you as a doctoral candidate.”

“Actually, that’s what I’m here to speak to you about,” Sho continued, struggling with the decision. He was an idiot, for so many reasons. “I’ve decided not to continue on after this degree.”

The man actually looked pleased. “Is that so? Are you sure?”

He nodded, remembering how it had felt to have Jun’s hands on his bare skin, inside his boxer shorts. How it had felt right, like a jigsaw puzzle piece falling into place and unlocking the rest of it. “Yes, sir. I was hoping you could tell me about opportunities at the treasury or other departments where I might make the best use of my education and skills upon graduation.”

His father picked up the newspaper again, his dismissal. “I’ll speak to my contacts in the morning. You’ve made the right decision, Sho.”

He bowed humbly before excusing himself. He made it to his room and locked the door, knowing as soon as the first tear hit his cheek that he hadn’t made the right decision at all.


	4. Night to Remember/Forget (Sho/Jun)

They’d started out with about ten people, none of whom Sho knew that well. They were all Jun’s friends. Acquaintances more like with the amount of attention Jun paid them. They were all in his class, and the one guy knew a guy who knew the guy who ran this place, which was why they were in the private room.

It had apparently been a really hard exam. Though he was kind of disappointed that Jun didn’t do better, he was still pleased. He’d done better than most of these other people, and Sho supposed that he had something to do with it. Not that he was bragging. Although once he had a few drinks in him, he didn’t really realize he was bragging. That’s what his friends usually teased him for the next day.

They were in a booth with a few other girls, a few other guys. One of the girls came back, heels way too high for the amount of shot glasses on the tray she was carrying. “Help me, already!” she cried, and the guy to Jun’s left got up abruptly.

Sho was learning something. For all that he was drunk, Jun was even more of a lightweight. The guy getting up knocked into Jun, sending him against Sho. Jun’s hand brushed against his thigh, trying to stay sitting upright, and Sho felt a rush of heat. It was the drinks. Sure, he’d wanted Matsumoto for a while now, but he was tutoring the guy. It would be weird, and he wasn’t that sure Matsumoto was interested.

But when Sho looked up, Jun’s eyes were different. He had to catch his breath as Jun took his hand back, fingers dragging across the fabric of his jeans excruciatingly slowly. Shit.

Nobody else paid much attention. The shots were distributed – Sho didn’t know what it was other than this strange bluish green color. Jun probably didn’t need anything more to drink – his whole face was flushed, and he laughed far more readily at the jokes his classmates told, smiled far more easily when Sho teased him about those essay questions. Jun held the little glass out, waiting for Sho to clink it.

“To you, senpai,” he slurred, teeth catching on the corner of his lower lip as he gave Sho a sly smile. “I’d be straddling that line between passing and failing like these other guys without you.”

“Hey!” one of his classmates complained. Jun ignored him, still holding his glass expectantly as the others around him were downing them and screaming that they tasted like candy and why don’t we buy another round of those?

It was stuffy in this room. He clinked his glass quickly against Jun’s and downed the shot. It didn’t burn – it really had been like candy. But it was too hot. He got up, taking off his jacket – there were a few appreciative noises from the beyond drunk girls, and for some reason, it pleased him a great deal. But standing up sent the shot and the beers before it straight through him and they’d had sake too, he thought. Whoa.

And Jun had something with an umbrella when he sat down, holding his jacket in his lap. One of the girls had passed it down before heading out, and Jun was apparently not one to be wasteful this far into a night of drinking. “What’s that?” he asked him, and Jun shrugged.

“Tasty,” was the answer Jun gave him, holding out the glass. “Wanna try it?”

Sho preferred beer to girly drinks, but he remembered the candy shot. The glass was mostly ice, and he put his lips to the straw slowly. Payback for Jun taking his sweet time moving his hand earlier. Jun definitely noticed this, his lips parting, eyes kind of glazing as he watched Sho try the drink.

This was not good. He didn’t need to be drunkenly teasing or implying anything. It wasn’t like him. It probably wasn’t like Jun either. Sho had a responsibility to him, but as he handed the glass back, Jun purposely brushed his fingers, and Sho had to adjust the jacket in his lap. Fuck.

People were leaving. One of them had an exam the next evening. Some were going back to the dorm, some were going home to crash. Sho didn’t want to go home, and as Jun took the straw out of the glass and stuck it in his mouth, Sho realized Jun was probably sticking around too.

“It was nice to meet you,” he told the ones who were leaving, even waving. The private room hadn’t fully cleared out when Jun threw his arm around his shoulder. One of the guys and his girlfriend were kissing at the end of the booth, didn’t seem like they were going anywhere any time soon.

“You really saved me this term,” Jun mumbled, words a bit jumbled from munching on the straw. His hand moved lower, touching the bare skin of Sho’s arm. Jun was warm. “Don’t suppose I’ll need your help next time?”

He was trying not to shake at the contact, at the tickling way Jun tapped his fingers against his skin. “If you need me, I’ll help you,” he assured Jun, letting his hand drop to Jun’s knee, squeezing. “Any time.”

Jun smiled, unashamed, unembarrassed thanks to the amount of alcohol he’d consumed. “Should probably get back.”

“Probably.” Jun took the straw from his mouth, poking Sho in the cheek with it. He dragged it down to his chin, the slightest bit of moisture trailing along his skin as it scratched along. He took the straw back, sticking it back in his mouth, and that was enough. He couldn’t take any more of this.

Sho got up, putting on his jacket. Jun kind of tipped over, laying down in the booth where Sho had been sitting. He laughed. “Where’d you go?”

He held out his hand. “I’d be a very bad senpai if I didn’t get you back to your room.”

Jun was still chewing on the straw as he took Sho’s hand and stumbled to his feet. He tugged him from the private room, holding the younger man upright by holding him around the arm instead of by the hand. They still had three or four blocks to walk back to the campus, and they didn’t need anyone to see them.

“I’m drunk,” Jun announced.

“Me too.”

“But I earned it.” They were stuck at an intersection, waiting for the okay to walk. Jun was leaning on him for support, arm around his back, and his hand was under his jacket, under his t-shirt, tickling and teasing. Sho bit the inside of his cheek. He had to stop. Jun had to stop.

They crossed the street, stumbling back to campus. Both of them tried to stay quiet – nobody needed to get arrested for public intoxication or something. How would he explain that one to his father? They passed under the gate at the campus entrance, and Jun, straw hanging lazily out of his mouth, saluted the guy on duty, and that was when Sho lost it.

He laughed. He couldn’t stop laughing. The guard just waved them along, and they made it to the first building full of classrooms before Sho had to pull Jun through the door. They sometimes left them unlocked for students working late on group projects. The lights had been turned off, but the door was open.

They stumbled into the hall of the empty building, and he took the stupid straw out of Jun’s mouth and threw it.

“Hey, my straw…” was all Jun got out before Sho pushed him against a wall and got close enough to feel Jun’s breath against his face. Sho paused there – between his legs, he knew what he wanted. They were drunk, maybe they could just kind of say things got carried away.

He wasn’t laughing now as his hand moved, brushing a few strands of hair away from Jun’s eyes. The glow from the emergency exit light cast strange colors on their faces, but Jun looked too stunned to do anything. He’d been teasing him all night, touching him all night…but now Matsumoto wouldn’t do it.

Sho had to – he was the instructor and Jun was the student, in a way. But Jun was the slightest bit taller, and he wore boots instead of sneakers, so he had to tilt his neck a bit to kiss Jun for the first time. It was the little intake of breath, the fact that Jun was still so surprised that made Sho break it off within a second. He closed his eyes, and their foreheads met.

“Sorry.” He still felt heat between his legs, the almost impossible desire to continue. They couldn’t, could they?

Jun fidgeted, breaths coming in quick succession. It was then that Sho felt Jun’s own arousal, hard and insistent as their bodies touched. “Oh god,” Jun whispered, and his lips were trembling under the harsh orange-red light.

That was it. “Tell me…” he muttered, trying to keep himself from grinding his hips against Jun’s. “Tell me I can do that again.” He figured that if Jun gave the okay that it really would be okay.

Jun didn’t talk.

“Tell me,” Sho demanded, moving his hand to the back of Jun’s neck, feeling the sweat that had dampened the slight curls at the base of his skull. Jun moved again, and Sho couldn’t deal with it.

He arched up against Jun, hard enough to draw a groan from the man’s lips before he slipped his own tongue between them. Tutoring sessions and responsibility and his father’s expectations faded as he got what he’d wanted for far longer than he’d deigned to admit.

It was sloppy. Jun was so far gone, Sho was too, he knew he was. Their noses bumped, Jun accidentally brought his teeth down on his tongue, but god it didn’t matter because it felt so good. Jun’s hands were on his back, slipping down to squeeze his ass. His hands snuck into Sho’s pockets, and then Jun was pushing back, moving his hips, grinding against him, and Sho felt like he was falling.

He pulled his mouth away, feeling like he hadn’t felt enough, tasted enough. Jun’s skin smelled like the bar, the private room with the smoke, and there was the slightest friction from the stubble making itself known along his jawline. He’d been so consumed with his exam that he hadn’t shaved that morning.

“My room,” Jun finally said with a gasp while Sho was pushing his collar aside, sucking on the skin that he knew a t-shirt would cover in the morning.

He didn’t want to let go of him, and they half-stumbled, half-ran hand in hand to Jun’s dorm complex. Nobody was on duty at the desk when they swiped in. As soon as the elevator doors closed, he pulled Jun over by the waistband of his jeans, hooking his fingers in one of the belt loops. He’d never kissed anyone before like he was kissing Jun now – drunk, sober. Never. That has to mean something, right?

They made it to Jun’s room, knocking stuff off the roommate’s desk and getting half-naked before Sho got him on his back in the dorm bed. They struggled a bit to get situated, and all Sho knew was that he wanted to touch him. Wanted to know what Jun sounded like, what Jun looked like as he got off in his hand. “Jesus,” Jun moaned as Sho pulled him free of his boxer shorts.

Feeling Jun in his hand, hard and already sticky at the tip, made him dizzy. There was music next door, Jun’s neighbor blasting his bass and it set a rhythm as he worked Jun up and down. They were quiet, and Sho hoped he wasn’t being too rough or too fast or not rough enough or too slow, and Jun’s mouth was swollen and still demanded his attention too.

Jun touched him, his hand tight around his bicep, unable to move anywhere else. When Jun came, Sho didn’t get to see because the younger man’s face was against his neck, his cries muffled. It might have been a minute, it might have been hours when Jun started to kiss along his collarbone, pulling on the button of Sho’s boxers.

“Please,” he heard himself say before he kissed Jun again, begging to be touched in return. He nearly ached for release as Jun’s unsteady hand grabbed hold, started running up and down at a frenetic pace. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t do anything but moan at the sensation.

When Jun broke away and went to his neck, licking and sucking, marking him, Sho couldn’t bear it much longer. “Oh god.”

They crashed hard, and the last conscious thought he had was Jun pulling the sheet up to cover them.


	5. Cowardice (Sho/Jun)

It wasn’t light when he woke up, feeling chilly. He blinked in the darkness, realizing that there was no blanket covering him. He was stuck between a person and a wall, and his head felt like it was between a rock and probably another rock.

When his brain decided to right itself, panic set in at the sight of the gently snoring lump who had stolen the sheets for himself. Liquid courage had landed him in Jun’s bed, and now everything had changed.

As he slid down to the foot of the bed, he remembered his soccer team’s trip to that haunted house during the first year of junior high. How he’d neglected to go to the bathroom before getting on the bus, how a well-timed scare from a costumed demon had made him wet his pants. How he’d gone through the rest of the haunted house in tears before running away and taking the train home instead of going out for a meal with the team.

He hadn’t pissed himself this time, but he was running away. Again. He needed a shower, and the room still smelled like the bar and like their sweat, and he had to leave. Jun didn’t even stir as he reached for his jeans, pulling his shirt on with shaking hands. He slipped out with his shoes in his hand – no note, no goodbye. He realized that he cared about Jun – he cared about Jun a lot. He had to leave.

\--

He should have expected this, he realized as he sat in the tutoring room by himself. He still had Jun’s number in his phone, but what the hell would he say? “You need my help this term? Bring your textbook and the print-out of the lecture notes, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Yeah right.

He’d slept terribly ever since, waking up hard and desperate for Jun’s hand to reach for him in the dark. All it took was the thought of having Jun’s mouth on him, and he was gone. But when he’d calm down and clean himself up and try to relax he’d remember how he fucked it up, how it was his fault entirely, and how he’d betrayed his position as an instructor. Because really, that was the truth of it. He was Jun’s instructor – he wasn’t his friend or his fuck buddy.

Sho packed up his stuff, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he headed down to the registrar’s office. The woman was slow and squinted at the computer print-out.

“Matsumoto…we’ve got a few of those.”

“Matsumoto Jun,” Sho repeated, as politely as he could.

“Well, I don’t have any registered for economics.” She squinted again. “I have a Matsumoto Jun in accounting.”

It was his fault. Because he ran, he avoided. “Thank you very much for looking.”

\--

It took another week before he had the courage to go to the dorm. The student affairs office was calling home and his father was looking into “opportunities.” He’d just finished typing up his resignation letter for the tutoring program, but instead of dropping it off, he’d found himself wandering to Jun’s dorm complex.

He made it up to Jun’s floor just after dinner time in the dorms had ended. He found the familiar door, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock. Instead, he stood staring at the numbers, at the crude doodle of breasts that Jun’s roommate had stuck on the door as a joke. Sho rolled his eyes and moved to the side, sliding down the wall to sit. Maybe Jun would come out and go to the bathroom soon.

And then what? Would he apologize? Would he just stare at him? He hadn’t thought it out that far. Time passed – a lot of time passed as he sat on the tile floor outside of Jun’s room. He hadn’t meant for it to go that far that night – not that he hadn’t enjoyed it. The problem was just how much he HAD enjoyed it. It was frustrating. He wanted Jun so bad it hurt.

The stairwell door opened and in walked Jun’s roommate, talking loudly on his phone as he came shuffling down the hall. Shit. Sho got to his feet, not realizing that it was already after 10. The guy was totally gone, leaning against the wall as he made his way down to the room.

“Hey, you should come up,” he told whoever was on the line with him. “No, no, it’s cool. Come on.”

Sho tried to move, but the guy was taking up the whole hallway, and the only stairwell was the one he’d come from. The guy gave Sho a strange look and smiled.

“You must be that guy.”

Sho said nothing, just grabbing his backpack and trying to move past Akanishi. But the roommate stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. “Matsumoto’s not here,” he slurred, chuckling a little. “Probably off with another guy, right?”

It took the sting in his knuckles from the punch before Sho realized he’d hit the guy, seeing Akanishi’s cell phone go clattering down the hall as he met the tile. The guy was stunned, lying on his ass, and Sho couldn’t believe he’d done it. He’d never hit anyone, much as he’d wanted to. But he’d never ever punched another person.

“The fuck’s your problem?” Akanishi was whining, crawling after his phone. “He went home, asshole!”

Sho was shaking, unable to speak as anger coursed through him. This guy didn’t know anything about him or anything about Jun. Fuck him.

Jun wasn’t there, so none of it mattered as he ran. Again.

\--

He stayed away from the tutoring rooms and from Jun’s dorm complex. He went out of his way on campus to avoid where Jun might have been. It was for the best – let Jun think he was an asshole. He was after all, wasn’t he?

The campus shut down, shuffled them all off and they recruited him to keep the gym in line. He met a guy named Aiba, set his stuff on the cot and did as he was told. He’d be a good little soldier while this health crisis or terrorist attack or whatever it was went down.

But when he got back to the cot, Aiba had already made a new friend, and Sho was fucked. He couldn’t run – not this time. Not ever again.


	6. New Message (Toma/Kato Ai)

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 19 October 2008 11:04 AM  
To: Sales-All  
Cc: Kato Nobuhiro; Inohara Yoshihiko; Yamaguchi Tatsuya; Katori Shingo  
Subject: New Employee Mixer

Sales Team,

We’ve had a few new hires this quarter, but few opportunities to get to know one another. There will be a lunch and learn with our company president, Kato Nobuhiro next Thursday at 1:00 PM. Other senior staff are welcome to join us. Please attend to get to know your fellow sales staff. I look forward to meeting with you all personally.

Kato Ai  
Senior Sales Manager  
Kato Restaurant Solutions, Inc.  
Phone x3451, Fax x9102

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 19 October 2008 1:14 PM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Re: New Employee Mixer

Ms. Kato,

I have a doctor’s appt scheduled for next Thursday and will be unable to attend mixer.

Apologies!!

Ikuta Toma  
Jr. Sales Representative  
Kato Restaurant Solutions, Inc.  
x2109

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 19 October 2008 2:46 PM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: Re: New Employee Mixer

Oh no!! I was looking forward to it. Maybe I can organize another one soon. Additionally, if you would like to meet President Kato, I think I can arrange that!! I’ll drop by your cubicle at end of day today.

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 27 October 2008 9:41 AM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Yesterday

Thanks again for organizing the meeting with your father.

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 27 October 2008 9:52 AM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: Yesterday

Careful. _President_ Kato.

:)

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 12 November 2008 3:04 PM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Meeting?

Ms. Kato,

Do you think I could meet with you about next quarter’s sales projections?

Ikuta

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 21 December 2008 1:07 PM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: Christmas?

I’d love to. Can you reply to my personal email from now on? ;)

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 12 January 2009 10:18 AM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Meeting

Sorry you were late to your meeting. I think the copier works just fine now.

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 12 January 2009 10:31 AM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: Meeting

Was helping an employee, not a problem. Let me know if the xerox gives you any other trouble. My calendar has us scheduled for a working lunch in my office today?

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 12 January 2009 10:39 AM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Re: Re: Meeting

Looking forward to it :)

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 20 February 2009 7:01 PM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: (No Subject)

Something for you to find in your inbox in the morning

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 21 February 2009 8:58 AM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: Re: (No Subject)

Found it. Find you later?

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 21 February 2009 9:12 AM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: Re: (No Subject)

Meeting with dad until 2:00 PM. Find you by the usual place after that.

-

From: Ikuta Toma  
Sent: 27 March 2009 10:15 AM  
To: Kato Ai  
Subject: News report

Did you see the report about the lab in Ikebukuro? Some Alzheimer meds thing.

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 27 March 2009 1:04 PM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: Re: News report

Swamped this morning, sorry. Been hearing stuff - my dad’s got a friend in the health ministry. Need to see you.

-

From: Kato Ai  
Sent: 9 April 2009 9:22 AM  
To: Ikuta Toma  
Subject: SEE ME IMMEDIATELY

You have to come with me. Don’t ask any questions. There’s no time.

I love you.


	7. Lives Remaining: 1

There was a Dragon Quest display at the game store in the mall.

Nino waited until he got off- they kept him a half hour longer, in the electronics section of the department store he worked in- because he knew if he got there any earlier, he'd get a game and wouldn't go back to work. He didn't really want to lose his job, since it enabled him to buy more games and pad out his savings account- though he had to admit, not nearly as much as he needed to, seeing as how he still hadn't moved out and still hadn't gotten to America.

So he waited until he got off so he didn't have to keep checking his watch for the time his lunch break ended, and wandered down to the game store. The cardboard display for the game was in the window between boxes of different colored DS's- the colors were lined up like pieces from Tetris.

He liked the game store. The employees sort of knew him- he stopped by often enough. There was some kind of sale or something going on in the mall, because there were a lot of people running around, but Nino didn't really need a big screen TV at half off, so he largely ignored them. The game store was nearly empty, and he ignored that, too; it meant he got to play the game for longer than he would have been able to had there been a crowd of people around. He was tired from being on his feet for his 8 hour shift, and he tuned nearly everything else out around him. This was his time- his time that he could spend how he wanted, for once.

He punched the volume up so he could ignore the din of voices in the corridor outside the doors.

The game was awesome. He was completely in love with the battle system, and the way the party worked. He spent way too long playing- he was going to miss his train.

When he put the controller down, the employees were gone. Probably just back doing shipment- he would have liked to have thanked them for letting him play, but he didn't want to annoy them when they had work to do (he appreciated that, having done the same thing earlier himself). He checked his watch, and then cursed; he was going to be late.

The mall was very quiet.

It was too quiet.

The shouting he'd been ignoring in favor of battle music had disappeared at some point- he didn't know when, and he didn't know where, but there weren't people in the mall anymore. In fact, it was very, very empty, and he was starting to get an uncomfortable twisting of nerves in his stomach. The mall shouldn't have been empty. There were still several hours until closing.

Where was everybody?

Nino stopped and turned completely around, checking everything. The stores were deserted, but like his game store, they'd all been left open. There were racks of clothing knocked down and lying on the tiles that no one had picked up. Registers were untouched; merchandise was still on the shelves.

For a very long moment, Nino didn't move. He was frozen to his spot. There had been something on the TVs earlier, when he'd been working. He was so used to hearing the televisions as background noise that he had ignored it, paying little attention to it, and now- now he was beginning to think that something important had been going on. There was something happening around him and he didn't know what it was.

There was a shuffling noise to his left. He moved towards it without thinking, assuming it was someone else as lost and confused as him. He couldn't see anything at first; there was a trash can in his way, blocking his view with the big, fake fern sticking out of the top, but as he began to round it, he saw a hand lying against the maroon tiles of the floor, stark contrast between the pale skin.

He glanced down at his sneakers. The tiles beneath his feet were beige.

His head snapped back up, just as the figure he hadn't seen earlier moved, hunched over the arm lying in the pool of rapidly expanding blood. Because that's what it was- blood. Nino wasn't stupid. He'd played enough war games to know. And the hunched figure, it looked at him. It looked at him through human eyes but half its face was gone, decayed into nothing, skin peeling and flaking at the edges as it growled.

For a moment that easily could have been an eternity, neither of them moved. And then the figure started laughing- but it didn't really sound like laughter, it sounded sort of caught between hysteria and garbled screaming, something high-pitched and terrible and ultimately not human-sounding at all.

And Nino ran.

He ran back to the closest thing he could think of, because the thing was on his heels, and it wasn't slow or lumbering; the movies were all wrong. It was just as fast as him if not faster, because his legs were shorter. He knew he wouldn't make it back to the department store, so he turned a sharp left into the game store instead.

He spun, sliding against the tiles and knocking over a display of Pokemon games, stretching and reaching for the metal wire door suspended over the opening. He could think only of keeping the thing out and away from him. The gate crashed down not a moment too soon; the thing- whatever it was, because it certainly wasn't human, not anymore- ran into the wires and screamed at him, fingers reaching through the openings as far as they could.

Nino threw himself backwards, tripping over the fallen boxes adorned with a jumping Pikachu and scrambling to move. There was another one- and then another. They clustered outside the gate and hissed and moaned and shrieked, and nothing sounded like people until one of them started laughing at him, and then it was even worse.

Nino practically threw himself into the backroom, slamming the employee door shut and falling against it with his hands over his ears.

At least in the empty stockroom, no one could mock him for sobbing.

\--

There was a radio in the backroom that he discovered when the racking wheezes stopped and he could move again. His entire body was shaking, but he managed to at least get himself up and moving. It was a small backroom- just some shelves, a desk with a computer, a radio, a small fridge, and a bathroom. He was thankful for the bathroom. He thought he'd be thankful for the computer, but the internet was down, and he couldn't get to any news sites to figure out what was going on.

The radio, however, netted some information.

"This is the emergency broadcast system. The government has declared the city a national disaster with need for quarantine. There is a grave health threat circulating throughout Tokyo. Survivors are urged to get to their nearest safety center and stay there awaiting further information from the government. This is the emergency broadcast-"

"The hell," Nino muttered, flipping it off. His throat was raw. He wondered if the things were still out there, beyond the gate. He didn't have the stomach to go and check. He did open the fridge, though, to find that one of the employees really liked yogurt and another's mother made slightly deformed looking onigiri.

He tried his cell phone, but every time he dialed, he was rewarded with a message about his service area being down.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do. There were things waiting to eat him- and he knew that's what they wanted, knew beyond all doubt that it was what the hunched figure had been doing over the body he'd seen- and the radio was telling him to get to a "safety center". He didn't know how to get to a safety center. He didn't even know where one was.

It wasn't like he could just get online to figure out the nearest location.

His watch read 6:45 PM. He climbed up on a small stepstool and pulled down several boxes of games and a black DS. It wouldn't get his mind off what was going on, but maybe he could pass time enough until someone came to get him.

\--

There weren't any windows to the outside, but when his watch hit midnight, Nino turned the DS off. His stomach was growling, so he ate some of the onigiri while sitting beneath the desk after having pushed the chair out. He felt oddly safer there, even though from the position, he couldn't see the door.

He turned the radio on, and got the same message again.

"This is the emergency broadcast syst-"

Someone had left their jacket on one of the shelves. It wasn't very thick, but it would do better than nothing. Nino curled up beneath the desk and drug the coat over his form, shivering. It really wasn't cold, but he was terrified still, muscles on overdrive.

He wasn't sure how long he slept. He didn't really dream.

When he woke, the power had gone out in the store, and it was very dark. For a second, he thought he was back at home, and had awoke in the middle of the night before his alarm was going to go off for work.

Then he heard it.

It was scratching, like fingernails against metal, and bits of whispers that he couldn't make out. His heart caught in his throat as the past day came rushing back to him, so fast it almost made him dizzy. He scrambled to get out from under the desk- he thought they were there, they had gotten in, they had found him. There was no one.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Nino looked up. He could hear them through the vents.

It was a stupid thing to do, but he was past being able to make rational decisions. His head was pounding and his heart was thudding wildly and he wanted to throw up when he thought about the figure munching on the body in the middle of the mall. "Stop it!" he cried, throwing his hands over his head and sliding down to his knees.

They didn't stop. They got louder.

"-can't hide forever, can't hide forever," they whispered.

"Go away!" Nino sobbed. "Go away! Leave me alone!"

There were more screeches, like something being dragged. "Come out, come out, wherever you are-" over and over and over again, until Nino threw on the DS as loud as it would go and held the system up to his ear just to try and drown the sound out.

It didn't work. He could still hear them.

He didn't sleep again that night.

\--

The next morning, they started singing through the vents.

\--

By the end of the second day, Nino had moved boxes aside in the storeroom and discovered an old vending machine in the corner. It was old and nothing could be good- the thing looked like it hadn't been used in years, but there were still some bags of chips inside, and he was hungry. He busted through the glass with the fire extinguisher that sat near the computer.

The chips were stale. It was better than nothing.

After finishing one bag and starting on another, Nino had gathered enough courage to attempt going out onto the selling floor again. He didn't have anything to fight with, and there really wasn't anything he could use in the back. He settled for a Wii controller, because if nothing else, he could missile it at their eyes and at least hear the smack when it connected. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting.

The truth was that he really couldn't think about dying without going into a panic attack.

But My Little Pony Dream Vacation was getting boring, and he needed something new to pass the time with.

It took him five minutes to open the door. When nothing jumped out at him, he pushed it open further. It was dark outside, too- the power must have gone out, and the mall didn't have anything as an emergency generator other than a few floor lights past the storefront. There was a flashlight, but it didn't illuminate much.

Nino snuck out, trying to find something new to play as quickly as possible. He scanned the rows until he found the new Harvest Moon game- that would do. He could lose days to that.

He was reaching for it when something slammed up against the metal grating covering the doorway. Nino dropped the flashlight and fell, knees giving out completely as his body went slack from terror. There was another thud against the grating and the shaking of metal joints, and then something cackled. Really and truly cackled. Nino couldn't see anything because the flashlight had snapped off when it hit the floor. He didn't even know where it was.

"-come out," whatever was at the opening hissed, and the metal shook violently. "Come out-"

Nino just kind of whimpered. They could talk. They could think, they knew he was still in there. They were coherent- they weren't lumbering, brain-dead bodies. He couldn't do anything, he could barely even move; he tasted bile at the back of his tongue, threatening to bubble and overflow. In a fit of madness, of horror, of panic he would never forget, he picked up the closest thing to his hand- an XBox 360 controller- and chucked it at the small bit of light he could see past the grating, where the generator was still powering the low-level light bulbs.

There was a furious cry when the controller hit the metal, and then the grates were shaking even harder, and they were going to get in, they were going to get in-

He forgot about the game, and the flashlight that had rolled somewhere into the inky shadows. He just scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees, cries caught in his throat as he slid into the backroom again and slammed the door behind him.

He cried into his palms, big, horrible, racking sobs that hurt when they forced their way up through his throat.

Above him, through the vent, they were singing Morning Musume.

"Hold me tight, don’t let go. Hold me forever, whenever, softly in my heart, I whispered..."

\--

By the fourth day, he was out of food from the fridge and the bottled water he'd been nursing- because he wasn't stupid, he wasn't going to try and drink the water from the drinking fountain- was almost gone.

He hadn't slept more than an hour each night- not with the horrific, off-pitch singing never ceasing. It reverberated through the vents and lodged itself in his ears. They'd moved onto a new song, a new genre- now it was Gackt.

Sometimes they didn't sing. Sometimes they screamed, and Nino wondered if maybe it was supposed to be words but they could no longer make them out. He didn't know what was happening to them. Except that they wanted to eat.

And their bodies were falling apart.

He talked to himself. They already knew he was there, and just hearing his own voice- real and not full of rage or garbled death- helped to keep him sane. His fingers were shaking so bad from exhaustion and hunger that he could barely play the DS anymore. He sat and stared at the boxes on the shelves for hours just rocking back and forth, arms pulling his knees tight to his chest.

Maybe it was the hunger pangs. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. But by the end of the day, when he watched the hands on his watch tick past 11:59 PM, he knew he was going to die. He was going to die if he didn't leave.

The odds weren't much better if he escaped, but it was hard to get worse.

He found a chain holding two of the shelves together. His phone didn't light up much, but combined with the DS screen, he could move around the backroom without running into anything. He pulled the chain free and roped it into the wrist-loop on the Wii controller he'd taken out to the storefront with him.

"All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu," he said, standing up to test his new weapon. It felt like an important moment, the kind that changes the entire game plan. Like when the party finally realizes that they aren't just collecting crystals, they are traveling to the moon to save the world. He thought he should christen it with a name.

Tomorrow, he would journey out.

\--

His phone was useless. The battery was dying and he had no way to charge it; all he'd gotten for days was the message that there was no reception in the service area. He decided to leave it behind.

He packed up the few bags of stale pretzels that were still in the vending machine. He was out of water and his throat felt like it was on fire, but he still wouldn't touch the drinking fountain. He'd played Biohazard; he wasn't taking any chances.

Masamune was solid on the chain. He felt better with it on his belt.

His fingertips paused on the handle. He couldn't hear any of the voices through the vents anymore, but he wasn't naive enough to believe them gone.

"Gone is the magical kingdom of Zeal," he sighed, throat constricting, "and all the dreams and ambitions of its people."

He opened the door to the storefront. He couldn't hear anything, and the emergency lights were still on, affording dim light out past the displays and the chain keeping the re-deads out. He crept through the aisles to the front, trying to keep his footsteps as light as possible.

He unhooked the chain grate, and had it halfway up by the time they were alerted to his presence. He heard the wail before he saw the shadow moving. The creature was farther gone than the others were; it was hobbling, like it didn't have full use of its limbs anymore. He thought he saw bone protruding through flesh near its knee, and swallowed back bile.

Nino was prepared to face them physically, but not mentally. His situation afforded him little time to catch up when staring it in the face.

He swung Masamune out and missed wildly. The arc was too wide, too low, but he was panicked enough to throw it again immediately. The second time he had better aim; it hit the re-dead in the shoulder and the thing let out a furious cry of pain.

Nino took his opportunity, and ran.

There was another one halfway down the mall. It shouted something at him that he was pretty sure was still comprehensible- he ignored it. He couldn't focus on the fact that they had once been human. The sad state was that they clearly weren't anymore, and if he wanted to stay alive, he was going to have to keep the separation intact between them. He hit a patch of something that had pooled- Jesus, it might have been blood, or some other bodily fluid, whatever acrid stench was hitting his nose- and nearly fell. He stumbled wildly, grabbing a hold of kiosk to keep his balance.

The re-deads were behind him, following him. He could hear their clunky footsteps.

At the end was a department store, a specialty one. It was one of those outdoor type stores, with canoes and fishing poles, and things Nino had no intention of ever, ever using in his life, but it was big, and the odds were good that it had its own entrance. If he could get through it and to the outside, he would be safe.

The gate was down at the opening. Nino fumbled with the latch, hearing the creatures gaining behind him. He was so scared that his fingers were barely responding to his brain. He barely got the thing open and slipped through, tripping and smacking his knees hard into the linoleum. It sent pangs all the way up his thighs, but he pivoted on them anyway to grab for the cage and slam it back down again.

Cold fingers met his cheek, pressed through the opening.

"No," Nino gasped, launching himself away from the grate. His legs throbbed.

They were hissing at him like cockroaches, reaching in through the grating, and he struggled to right himself on his feet again. He just had to find the exit. God, he hoped there was an exit.

He could still hear them as he stumbled into the bait and tackle section. He got all of two steps, fighting for breath and wheezing, oxygen sticking in his lungs, cloying in his throat. And then there were hands reaching for him from the side aisle, coming from nowhere, from the shadows that covered everything.

Nino yelled something- maybe it wasn't entirely coherent. He swung Masamune but his elbow was at an odd angle and he was far from being close.

"No, no, wait," the figure was saying, and all Nino could hear was the lyrics from the vent. He swung again. This time, his aim was better, and the figure dodged, ducking under the chain's arc whizzing through the air.

"Are you dead?" Nino asked, words catching in his throat. He didn't want to wait for the response- the question had slipped out without him meaning to say it, exhaustion loosening his tongue.

"Wait, I'm not one of them-"

"That's what they all say!" Nino cried. His hold on Masamune slipped- his fingers were shaking too badly, hands trembling too much. He balled his fingers into fists and tried swinging with just his own two hands instead. He'd never really had much experience with brawls. And things were starting to go red around the edges because he was having trouble breathing.

"Wait, wait, just hold on-"

Nino swung again. "You can't take me, you can't have me!"

"Hold on, just hold on," the figure kept saying, and at some point, Nino's knees gave out. He was beyond exhausted. Moving so fast, running so hard, it had taken up the last of his reserves. He hadn't eaten more than junk from the vending machine for days, hadn't slept for fear of them finding him- his body was giving out. He ended up in a gasping heap on the ground, arms curled over his head.

He was going to die.

"Make it quick," he whispered. "Please, just make it quick."

There were hands on his, moving down to his shoulders. They didn't feel like they wanted to tear him apart. They were oddly reassuring, and warm- not like the dead hands that had reached for him through the criss-cross of metal wires.

"Hey," the person said. "No, I'm not one of them, I'm not infected."

"Infected?" Nino managed to croak out.

The hands closed around his shoulders, solid. "I don't have the disease."

Nino looked up. The muscles in his back were starting to uncoil a bit, loosening around his neck. The figure standing over him looked to be perhaps his age, with hair that was sticking up in every direction and sleepy eyes.

Nino blinked at him, trying to process.

"I'm Ohno," the other man said. "I've been staying here."

That was why the gate was down. Nino hadn't made the connection that someone might have put it down on purpose. He shakily climbed to his feet with help from Ohno's hand. He wasn't sure how he should be feeling, meeting someone else. He still wasn't sure the man wasn't dead.

But he was so tired, maybe it didn't matter just yet. "I'm Ninomiya."

Ohno just looked at him with kind eyes that Nino didn't entirely trust. "Follow me, I've set up a little place in the Home Decor department."

Nino followed, feeling like his limbs were made of sand, and his mind was going in every direction.


	8. Restart (Ohno/Nino)

"I have to go home," Nino said, after the second night at the bank when they survived on packets of ramen that they ate without any water, dry noodles crunching between their teeth. "I have to see if they are okay."

Ohno doesn't say anything for a long while. Sometimes he just looks out past Nino's shoulder, and Nino is never quite sure if he's lost in his own thoughts or still listening. But then Ohno kind of nods, shrugging a bit. "You have to do what you have to do."

It wasn't a yes or a no; it wasn't anything, and Nino wasn't sure how to take it.

"Are you going home as well?" he asked, crumpling up his ramen wrapper and tossing it to the side. He didn't feel bad about littering. The bank employees wouldn't be coming back, at least not for a long while.

Ohno didn't answer. Maybe he didn't have one.

After awhile, Nino stopped waiting for a reply, and just sat staring at the subway map he'd grabbed when they had passed the shell of Shinjuku Station.

\--

Ohno still didn't say what he was going to do when they reached Harajuku.

"We'll meet back up then," Nino said. "Three days."

"Where?"

Nino didn't know what areas were safe. Everything was overrun, and in three days, it could change completely. The tunnels underground were nests, completely full of the dead and reeking from miles away. Simply following the blood splatters would lead to any number of Infected creatures, and Nino didn't feel like tangling with them. He and Ohno had already come up across so many. He was already having nightmares of slipping flesh and exposed bone.

"I don't know," Nino conceded. "I don't know what's safe."

Ohno was quiet again, chewing on his lower lip. He tapped his paddle against his toe in a bizarre rhythm, matching something only he could hear. "I think they gravitate towards the downtown areas."

This was true from what they'd seen- at least as far as they knew.

"So downtown is out," Nino said.

"Think," Ohno said, and Nino wasn't sure if he was saying it to himself, or to Nino. "What are the places that would be useless for them?"

It was a maddening riddle, and they'd been playing it for days. But it was hard to get mad at Ohno. He was just kind of a silent pillar, strength when one needed it. He knew when to push and when to stay back; when to let Nino brood on his own, and when to press a hand against his shoulder, fingers curling around the joint in a gesture of solidarity.

"Well," Nino started, slowly, "they need to feed."

Ohno nodded. "So they go to where they can find survivors."

There was a moment of silence, and then Ohno's expression turned thoughtful. "But they aren't dead. I mean, they were people."

"Yes," Nino said. "We've established this."

"No," Ohno replied, and shook his head. "I mean, they aren't dead prior to it. And they seem to want to feed on living people. So where is the place they would find the least of what they need?"

Suddenly, Nino understood what he was getting at. "A cemetery."

"Mm," Ohno agreed.

"But which one? They are everywhere in Tokyo."

And Ohno just shrugged again, resuming the tapping of his paddle against his shoe. "The biggest? Aoyama is easy to find."

"Alright," Nino said. "The corner, then. At the guard shack."

He didn't know what he was supposed to feel when Ohno gave him a nod and a smile, and started to walk away. He was the only person alive Nino had found since the whole thing went down- and they still didn't know anything, other than most of the other people around were infected with whatever it was and were trying to attack them.

They were missing a world of information, struggling to survive in the dark.

Nino's chest tightened. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't afraid of going out on his own, trying to find what had happened to his mother and sister, but it was a risk he knew he had to take.

He watched Ohno walk away until the other man's image had faded completely into the distance, and then he whirled to begin his own journey.

\--

It took him a day to get home. He avoided the main stretch of streets, and in the daylight, it seemed they were less likely to come out. That, at least, matched the zombie lore Nino knew from his games. He kept Masamune on his belt, occasionally holding it just to feel something solid and anchoring between his fingers. By nightfall, he had found an empty loft above what seemed to have been a sushi bar. It had only one opening, and he could bar that. He didn't sleep a lot, but when he woke the next morning, his eyelids were sticky and stuck together, and nothing had devoured him in his sleep.

His neighborhood was in shambles.

It had gotten hit hard. It was more ransacked than several of the other blocks he'd walked through; debris was everywhere, littering the street. Clothes lines were pulled down and the remnants of laundry were still clinging to them, cars were parked in the middle of the street like they had been left idling. Nino took each step slowly, internalizing it. His heart was in his throat every time he saw a patch of dried blood.

He saw enough pieces to put together at least three bodies by the time he reached his front door.

There was blood smeared across the living room windows.

"Mom?" he called out. He knew better- he knew better as soon as his palm hit the door and pushed it open. It wasn't even locked, it was slightly ajar. Every nerve in his body was singing with a revelation his mind just couldn't accept.

The entire block was in tatters. There was blood everywhere, cars going nowhere. "Mom?"

He knew there wouldn't be an answer.

He shouldn't have gone inside.

It actually took ten minutes for the bile to rise up hot and stinging in the back of his throat. He made it out past the front stoop before he lost it, vomiting into the bushes and choking on tears and stomach acid. He was in broad daylight, visible to anyone, and he didn't even care. He sat on the steps leading up and sobbed into his palms until he could barely see straight anymore. His head was pounding and his eyes were raw.

He'd known. Oh, somewhere he'd known exactly what he'd find when he went home, and he'd done it anyway. All those bullshit stories about closure and finding peace knowing what happened were just that- fucked up clichés told by people who'd never had to collect the pieces of their family members.

His stomach heaved again, abused and angry. There wasn't much left to come up, but it still burned.

And when the sun started in its downward arc, he got the shovel out of the spare bedroom, and started digging.

\--

He heard the howl after he'd finished with the last dirt mound. The shovel was still in his hands because he couldn't get his fingers to unclench around the handle. He just stood where he was, staring down at the overturned earth, waiting.

Nino knew it was coming. It had to have seen him, and he hadn't exactly been quiet.

A rattle of a laugh, or what had once been something similar. It seemed there was only one, and Nino could hear the footsteps crunching on the weeds that had withered and died and never been pulled at the side of the house. He waited until he had rounded the corner- it wasn't even being very sneaky, but it was probably far gone, past reasoning and onto the flesh lust, the time when it just craved and screamed and was so little of a person anymore.

He waited, and when it came around, he swung with everything he had.

It felt good to watch the figure go flying. He'd managed to do some damage, possibly even break an arm, but that wasn't enough. It would never be enough again, because his family was gone, and those things were to blame, and he just swung again, howling and crying again. His whole vision was blurry, but he still managed to land another smack to the things face- or what was left of it.

It was shrieking in pain, falling over itself and throwing limbs everywhere. Nino lost his grip on the shovel when one of the hands hit the flat end with force, and he didn't want to grab for Masamune.

He went for the lawn mower still parked out near the bushes.

He was dimly aware that he was laughing as the motor started with a gurgle and a sputter. The Infected creature was still on the ground, still rolling around; whatever Nino had hit, it had rendered the thing stunned for enough time. Just enough to do what he needed.

Nino didn't even hesitate. He kicked the mower into gear and threw it forward, jamming the clutch so it would stay on.

He had the good sense to throw his arms over his face.

His sleeves took most of the spray. He couldn't see, but he could hear- hear the splintering and cracking and dicing of bone and flesh, and hear the splatters against the side of the house. His entire body was shaking with overloading emotions and exhaustion and the fact that he'd spent hours crying his eyes out. He just shook when he felt the liquid hit his clothing, shook and shook and didn't stop shaking even after the mower died and there was only silence.

Then he laughed until his throat was raw, and he couldn't feel anything at all.

\--

He didn't know how he got to Aoyama.

He didn't even know how he got out of his neighborhood, or how long it had taken. Everything was a blur of pain and bubbles in his chest, and acid in the back of his throat. Nothing stood out in the sea of anguish, the never-ending white that took over his senses. He found the cemetery and he sat on the corner by the small shack, letting his body collapse against the side.

He hadn't even bothered to get new clothes. He was covered in Infected blood that had dried on everything he was wearing.

Nino knew nothing until there were hands at the side of his face. "Nino? Nino?"

"No," he whispered, and his lips were so chapped that moving them hurt. "It's all gone. It's all gone."

Ohno was taking his jacket off, the jacket that had taken the brunt of the spray. It wasn't cold, but Nino's body was shaking like mad, so hard it was painful. And Ohno was just talking to him, hands moving reassuring along him to check for injuries, for broken skin. "It's not all gone, I'm still here. I'm still here, Nino. Do you hear me?"

"No," Nino said again, and he didn't know what he was answering.

Ohno hauled him up to his feet. He could barely keep his balance, but it was probably because he hadn't had anything to eat or drink for three days. He just walked in the direction that Ohno pointed him in, and stopped when he was told. He couldn't see anything.

They ended up in a crypt. It wasn't big, but it was solid, and heavy, and felt like the fortress at the end of the game that the party had to infiltrate to save the world. Maybe that's what it was.

Ohno gave him bottled water, pushing the plastic against his lips until he choked it down, running soothing fingers through his hair. "It's going to be okay. We're going to be okay, now."

Even half-coherent, Nino knew it was a lie, but it was one he was willing to cling to.

Somehow, Ohno had found some more boxed crackers. He pulled them out one by one and made Nino eat them. And when he was done he pulled off his over shirt and wet it down with water from the bottle, cleaning off the blood that was still stuck to Nino's skin like a brand.

His fingers felt sincere.

"You're clean," he said, when he was done, tossing the shirt aside. And Nino reached for him, reached for his hands to twine their fingers together, because he had nothing left to hold onto, and he was falling fast. He just wanted something that was his, something that wasn't trying to kill him in the warzone he found himself living in.

Ohno met him in the kiss halfway.

It was hopelessly clumsy, and terribly wonderful. Nino was only half aware that he was crying again, and that the tears were getting caught in the corners of his mouth, pressed between their lips. It made everything tast salty, like the crackers they'd been eating prior. He didn't know what he needed, but he knew what he wanted; Ohno let him take it. Ohno met him there and didn't let him flounder alone- he met Nino at every turn, at every curve, letting him ravage what he needed and sweeping in to clear the rest away.

The floor of the crypt was hard and they had nothing to lie on, and Nino's spine was digging into the cement with every movement, but it didn't really matter. Ohno's hands were just a lithe and fluid as the rest of him, sliding with grace and caresses that weren't perfunctory. Every stretch of skin he let his palms slide over burned with meaning, with something- they weren't alone. They weren't alone, because at least they had each other.

It hurt and it stung, and Ohno kept one hand pressed against Nino's the whole time, fingers tangled together like a web.

The orgasm felt like a god-send; it was the only thing Nino had felt in days that wasn't bone-touching weariness or agony. For a few blissful seconds, he was okay. He could keep going.

When reality crashed back in again, it wasn't quite as bad.

Ohno draped a raggedy, moth-eaten blanket over them, curling up behind Nino and holding him, thumb tracing little circles on the back of Nino's hand.

"Nino," he started, and Nino squeezed his fingers.

"Kazu."

Ohno sighed against his shoulder, at the back of his neck. "Satoshi."

"Are we going to be okay?" Nino asked.

"I don't know," was Ohno's reply.

It wasn't sugar-coated or optimistic, it wasn't a lie to make him feel better. It was just the truth, and that, Nino could appreciate.

He slept.

For the first night in over a week, he didn't dream.


	9. Life, Interrupted (Kame)

“We’re all going to die!”

He just nodded, pushing Mr. Yagami back to his room. “I don’t think it’s so bad as all that,” Kame said, trying to sound confident. “They said it’s some kind of medical outbreak. The government will get it under control in no time.”

Mr. Yagami shook his head vehemently. “You saw those casters, Kazuya. You saw the fear in their eyes.”

Sure, the anchors for the news program had seemed a bit nervous, but Mr. Yagami was paranoid to begin with. He was convinced that aliens were stealing his denture adhesive, when it was probably just the kleptomaniac Mrs. Kiragawa down the hall. He slid open the elderly man’s door and pushed him back inside. “You just need to get some rest. Do you want to play catch tomorrow? I think Mr. Fujihara was going to play.”

Yagami just snorted as he held onto Kame’s offered arm, settling down into his bed. “Mark my words, Kazuya. You’re a good boy. You need to get out before it kills you too.”

He folded up the wheelchair and leaned it against the wall, bringing the walker over beside the bed in case the old man needed to get up during the night. “Good night, Mr. Yagami.”

\--

It was a double shift the next night, and he was already exhausted. One of the women had fallen, knocking over the care center’s television and a lamp. Kame had been cleaning up the mess, answering questions about how Mrs. Toriumi was doing since 8:00 PM, and it was already after midnight.

He was just about to doze off during his hall patrol when one of the nurses came running up. “Kamenashi! Kamenashi! We have to wake the residents,” she cried, shaking his arm vigorously.

“Wait, what’s wrong?” He remembered Yagami’s worry from the night before, and his blood ran cold.

“They just announced it on the radio. We all have to evacuate. We’re supposed to go to one of the ward’s safety centers!”

“Wait…safety center? What’s happening?”

By now there were nurses knocking and entering rooms, as were other tired looking staff. “Can you get the east wing dressed and ready to go? We’ve only got so much time to get them there!”

He just nodded. What the hell was he supposed to tell these people when he didn’t know himself?

\--

The center was in an elementary school basement three blocks from the nursing home, and the people in the streets were hurrying, carrying suitcases and their children in their arms as they pushed past their slower procession.

The whole ward, all of Tokyo he bet, had to evacuate. He wanted to call home, tell his parents what was happening, but all he could do was stay at the rear and make sure no one in his care fell and hurt themselves.

When they got to the school, there was a list of neighborhood residents that were allowed inside. He was an employee of the home – he wasn’t a resident. The government employees, the police outside – they told him he wasn’t welcome.

“Kazuya!” he heard Mr. Yagami call back over his shoulder as one of the policemen started wheeling him inside. “Kazuya, god bless you!”

He and the other nursing home staff were huddled outside in the middle of the night. The director looked worried, but his voice was calm. “Get back to your homes, find your safety center. Be careful.”

Would there be any room when he got to wherever he was assigned? It was late, and the elementary school was already turning people away.

\--

His parents and brothers had already evacuated when he got home, leaving an address for a small office building on the table along with a bag his mother had packed for him. It was nearly 4 AM when he made it over there, but the building was already locked down.

“Hey!” he cried, banging on the door, looking for a window. “Hey, let me in!” His parents were inside, wouldn’t they help him out? Or did they assume that people who hadn’t gotten there in time were already…infected?

He stood outside, confused. Eventually some others came over, banging to be let in as well. He eventually gave up and turned around.

\--

The house was empty. The whole neighborhood was silent, until he heard the first screams. He stared out his bedroom window, squinting out into the darkened street. He saw them, saw the crazy way they were dragging people. He watched them take his neighbor out of his car as he tried to flee.

He couldn’t stay at home.

\--

It took three weeks living off of dried fruit and other snacks he’d found in his house before he found a safe place. He offered the remainder of his food and some valuables he’d taken from the house as a trade for a place to sleep.

He hadn’t thought to check the water they were giving him. They seemed so nice.

\--

His leg itched, and he just wasn’t going to look at it. Looking at it made him realize that something was seriously wrong. He had to ignore it. Had to think of the residents he’d helped every day, of his mother’s cooking, getting to see his little niece again and teach her how to bat just like all the boys could.

But he woke with nightmares. The others would be talking – they’d be arguing at night about where to go next. He didn’t like these people any longer. They came back covered in blood, and Kame knew what they’d been doing. They would all get so angry, and even though Kame felt odder and odder with each passing day, he wasn’t crazy like them. He wasn’t going to be like them.

They could snap his neck, but they let him stay because he’d brought food, other things to trade. But the further and further crazy they got, the more their brains would forget that he was their ally. They were out killing people – he had to kill them first.

They’d know if he took one of their weapons. They slept with them during the day, bouts of nightmares full of screams. There was a mall, not too far away. He’d go tomorrow, claim he was hunting.

He’d come back, and he’d kill them all.

\--

The guys in the store weren’t infected. Their eyes were tired rather than hyper alert, not filled with the bloodlust Kame had seen in the others. He’d get these guys to help him.

They didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame them. He made up a story, that he was coming to get something to help him defend himself. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He split off with the guy in glasses. Would they help him? They were going through boxes, looking for anything to use.

“Is it just you guys?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at the clothes he was going through, desperate to find a hunting knife or something underneath in the box. “Just you five?” Him and five would be enough to take them out if they were sleeping.

They made small talk, digging around for more things. They’d been in a safety center – but they’d left. He wondered if his family was still alive. With the way things were going, that wasn’t necessarily likely.

He frowned, telling the guy in the glasses that he had somewhere to go back to. The only part that was a lie was when he told the guy the place was safe.

“You guys are welcome to come back with me,” he said, trying to ignore the urge to scratch his leg. He had to make them trust him – he just needed to wipe the others out. Then these guys could leave, and he’d just hide, wait this out. Maybe there’d be a cure soon, before he went mad?

Then again, he’d woken up that morning and couldn’t remember his friends’ names, the name of the place where he’d worked or what he liked to eat for breakfast. Maybe he was already mad, barely clinging to sanity.

One of the guys called out for help, and he and the guy with glasses (had he said his name was Sakamoto? Matsumoto?) headed over to find the serious looking one trying to grab a baseball bat. He smiled – he still remembered. He loved baseball.

“I’ll get it.”

He remembered the first time he’d been on the field in elementary school, remembered how his parents had cheered for him when he hit his first base hit. He stretched his fingers up, desperate to touch it. Maybe he’d remember more with a bat in his hands. Kame stretched, standing on top of a cooler.

They’d carried him on their shoulders when they won the championship in junior high.

“Just about got it…”

He smiled, remembering how happy he’d


	10. Akanishi Jin's Excellent Adventure

When he woke up, Matsumoto was gone. And thank god for that. The whiny guy had woken him up from an awesome dream where he’d been screwing two Italian chicks in a hot tub, complaining about the dorm being under attack or something.

His alarm hadn’t gone off. They must have lost power during the night because it was just blinking 12:00 at him. His cell phone alarm hadn’t gone off either. He grumbled under his breath, reaching for the phone on his nightstand.

No signal.

Granted, their dorm was pretty shitty with reception from time to time, but there was nothing. He didn’t even know what time it was – he was probably late for class, so fuck it. The floor bathroom was empty when he got in there, and there was plenty of hot water left. He threw on some clothes and decided to hit the student union. There’d probably be some first year girls cutting class.

Damn, campus was empty today. The hell was going on? The union doors were closed, like actually barred shut. He kicked it for good measure. Okay, so much as he didn’t want to give that OCD weirdo roommate of his any credit, but maybe the campus had been in some kind of trouble. Everybody was gone. Maybe classes had been canceled, so he didn’t need to be sticking around when there was an impromptu holiday.

He headed back for the room, grabbing a hat, a hoodie, and his train pass. There wasn’t the slightest indication that something was ridiculously fucking wrong until he got within a few hundred meters of the train station. He heard before he saw – screaming, and really loud. It was echoing from the platform if he had to venture a guess. Like someone was getting stabbed or something, guttural noises like they couldn’t even form words any more. Needless to say, nothing like that had ever happened at Tamachi Station before.

So he was pretty screwed as far as the above-ground trains went, and the hair on the back of his neck and his arms kept rising as he changed his direction, heading for the subway station. The escalators were out at Mita, and he made it down the first flight of stairs when he saw a shadow on the wall. The person was just around the other side, and he flattened himself against the wall, hoping they hadn’t caught sight of him. Because this shadow, well, the person was talking.

“My baby,” they were saying, and their voice was scratchy, like they’d been smoking since they popped out of their mom. “I can’t find my baby.”

Shit. Shit shit shit, this could not be good.

He tried some stealthy move like out of the Metal Gear Solid game he’d seen his buddy Koki play, poking his head around the corner. And holy fuck, this bitch’s face - it was peeling off. And that wasn’t the worst part - she was holding a baby in her arms, or at least a bundle that had been one at some point. All Jin could see was blood. 

She noticed him, she noticed him because she looked at him suddenly with empty eyes and screamed. “Where is my baby?”

He had to get out of here! And when he got out of here, he needed a drink because this was some MESSED. UP. SHIT.

He ran, not like a little bitch, no, but like a man who had to stay alive now. Something was in the drinking water or in the air or who the hell knew, but Tokyo was under some kind of attack, and he was not going to end up in a subway station screaming about babies.

\--

There’d been a whole slew of those creepy fuckers outside his favorite off-campus bar. He’d watched in horror as they laughed, dragging uninfected captive people around by their hair before taking them inside. It seemed these creeps were pretty damn efficient for zombies, which was the only thing he could think they were. So maybe they were sentient or something. Not all of them were losing skin yet either - whatever the hell was getting people was in stages. If only he’d paid more attention in bio class (then again, there’d been that brunette whose thong was always sticking out the top of her pants...)

He still needed a drink. Trains weren’t running, cars were on fire, and he hadn’t seen any other people that weren’t freaking infected. He didn’t want to think that Matsumoto had been infected, touching him, shaking him last night. He still had some change on him since the bar was NG, so he hurried away from the mob at the bar, looking for a vending machine.

A beer would have to do. He fed the coins into the machine with shaking fingers. He needed a whole lot more than a can of Asahi, but his options were pretty fucking limited at this point. He could see Tokyo Tower, all lit up with a red glow that was rather sinister now that the world had apparently lost its shit entirely. He downed the drink and ditched the can. Where the hell could he go?

\--

Three days had passed, and the world was a real god damned mess. Jin had tried to go back to campus, but it had been too quiet, like something was probably hiding behind a bush waiting to pounce on him once it went dark. They were pretty nocturnal when it came to feeding. Maybe they saw better at night, maybe they were cruel enough to prefer hunting people down at night when it was scary. 

He’d found a few people. Nobody knew shit - there’d apparently been radio broadcasts from the government about safety centers. But what the broadcasts hesitated to mention was where the hell they were. Jin knew that’s where Matsumoto and the rest of his dorm had gone off to. But he just couldn’t get back there. So all across Tokyo, all across Japan he imagined, thousands (millions?) had been evacuated to places and those who hadn’t gotten in were pretty much fucked.

He was staying at one of the clubs he’d frequented in Roppongi. Mori Tower and the subway stations around it were a hive, but there’d apparently been enough people inside the stations or the general area to rip apart because they didn’t stray too far. Maybe it was because the disease, the infection, it killed people quickly. 

There was a doctor here, some guy from Germany. He’d been living here, and even he wasn’t entirely sure how it was working. Not that Jin really gave a shit about what was happening - he mostly just wanted to make it out. All they knew was that people got mad, really mad, filled with rage and once their bodies started falling apart, their minds followed shortly after. Then they’d just kind of...die.

Jin had seen them, going out for a raid with a few other guys the morning before. They’d been lying in the streets, mouth open but unable to speak. They’d been businessmen, kids, old people - it ended the same way for all of them. They didn’t have much in the way of weapons. It wasn’t like he had those kind of connections, and neither did these people. He’d killed one of them with a bar stool when they’d taken all the food they could carry from an AM/PM store.

There’d been whispers though, about the government leaving them for dead. How Japan was completely lost. He couldn’t get home, he couldn’t get a hold of any of his friends, and he was stuck eating week-old melon bread. Why hadn’t he listened to Matsumoto that night?

\--

“What if you don’t come back?” she asked.

“Well, then I guess you can have my food ration,” he complained, trying to get her bra undone. “I don’t really wanna talk right now.”

“But this is like, something a bomb squad should have handled before...why are you going?”

He didn’t really know why. The doctor guy had asked him, and much as Jin thought he didn’t care, he didn’t want these asshole infected people to do it - he didn’t think they needed that much of a victory. Not to mention that without it, the radio broadcasts would stop or get mostly interrupted, and it was their only source of information.

“Please come back, okay?”

He kissed her quiet. “Yeah, I’ll come back.”

\--

“This is military grade,” the engineer guy said, looking at all the explosive shit they’d managed to wire around the tower. “Akanishi, they’re coming up the elevator, cut through the wire.”

“Then how the fuck are we getting down?”

They all exchanged looks. Oh crap.

\--

At least it was going to be quick.


	11. Pretend

Sho stared up at the scoreboard, bathing the gymnasium in a washed out sea of red.

Jun was next to him. For the first time since that fateful night, the one that Sho would never be able to expunge completely from his mind, Jun was lying next to him, curled up in a ball with his back in Sho's direction, hands curled around the flat pillow. Sho couldn't sleep. It was partly because Jun was in the middle of their pushed together cots instead of Aiba, and partly because his heart still hadn't stopped racing from the scare they'd had in the center.

He could still hear the thing laughing as it shuffled past the bleachers.

He didn't think he would ever forget that noise.

He could hear some others awake around them; apparently he wasn't the only one finding it difficult to sleep again. He wondered what the higher-ups were doing in the rafted scaffolding above the showers where they set up camp. He wondered how they would try to explain the thing that got in and scared them all half to death.

Sho knew what was out there. At least, he was pretty sure he did. He knew enough, at least, to understand that maybe he didn't want to know anymore.

Beside him, Jun made a slightly strangled sounding noise- like he was scared. A nightmare, maybe, even with the sleeping pill Sho had slipped him from the smallest pocket of his backpack, shoved between the cot legs. Aiba's rhythmic breathing was audible from the far side of their make-shift bed, but Jun was shivering beneath the blankets.

Sho rolled over, staring at the curve of Jun's shoulder visible from beneath the edge of the sheet.

God, he felt like shit. He still felt like complete and utter shit for leaving that morning. For not having the courage to still be there when Jun opened his eyes and rolled over in the sunlight streaming through the curtains, to see the slow smile that he knew by heart stretch over his features. Not a day went by that Sho didn't completely hate himself for that stupid, cowardly decision.

And he couldn't take it back. He would never be able to take it back.

But he reached out without truly meaning to, fingers brushing against the coarse fabric of the standard-issue clothing on Jun's back. He could feel the trembles in Jun's muscles beneath his hand, feel the shivers rippling through the other man's form.

He closed his fingers around Jun's shoulders and squeezed a bit.

Jun turned over.

Sho froze, hand up in the air as the other man shifted and sighed, curling up closer to Sho, so close their faces were only inches apart on the pillows. From the red lights on the scoreboard, Sho could see the tiny trembles of Jun's eyelashes against the paleness of his skin.

He really wanted to touch Jun- just one more time, just to remember what it had felt like to run his hands over him that night, tangled between the sheets in Jun's dorm bed. Jun was shivering still, remaining in the throes of whatever nightmare had gotten hold of his mind since the thing had gotten inside the safety center defenses. Sho let his hand fall forward, brushing against Jun's cheek.

Jun sighed again, and his trembling subsided a bit. Sho let his fingers stay there, moving against Jun's ear and behind it to run through the waves of his hair. It felt kind of freeing to do it; nice, after so long. And Sho knew it wasn't his to do, not his to take, but he took it anyway. He let his arm fall down to sit on Jun's waist, on his hip, pulling him just a little bit closer.

If Sho could take away his nightmares, then he would.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, because when Jun couldn't hear him, it was so much easier to say.

He leaned forward so their foreheads were nearly touching. He knew it would be okay come morning; he'd wake earlier, because Jun had troubles with mornings as it was, and by the time Jun opened his eyes, Sho would be safely on his side of the bed again.

And everything would go back to the way it was.

The way Sho had forced it to become.

But for a little while- just a few, stolen moments, Sho could pretend like Jun was his again.


	12. Hadn't Been Wrong

He wondered if he really could have split Ninomiya’s skull with that bat.

As the rage within him started to ebb, he decided that no, he probably couldn’t have. Despite his temper, Sho didn’t think he was a violent person. And with the way this disease, virus, whatever manifested itself, he didn’t need to be shouting and waving weapons at his friends or at anyone. They’d turn him out, leave him behind. As confused as he still was about Jun, he knew that he didn’t want to be out in this nightmare without him.

Aiba had followed him. Better him than Jun. He didn’t want to talk to Jun about what Ninomiya had implied, hinted. There were more important things at stake than the past. Let the past remain in the past. Masaki picked up a half-burnt incense stick from a nearby grave, flinging it off into the darkness like it was for a dog playing catch.

They didn’t wander too far from their little hideout, and Sho’s stomach was already rumbling. Maybe he should have taken his share of food before storming out when Nino’s snide comments hit too close to home.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Aiba said quietly, sitting down and letting his golf club lay across his lap.

He wasn’t tired, not yet, but if Aiba was being gracious, keeping an eye on him out here when he’d be far safer inside, then he had to take it. Sho sat down, leaning his head back against someone’s headstone. It was probably safe enough in the cemetery. They could hear people coming in most directions, especially with how dead quiet all of Tokyo was now. He just hoped Aiba was quick with that golf club.

“Thanks, Masaki,” he mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. It was chillier outside. Even though it was fairly warm during the day, the city seemed colder now at night than it ever had. Maybe it was the darkness. Even in the cemetery, the lights from Mori Tower and Roppongi Hills would normally be visible, but the whole city, the enormous buildings around them were mostly dark.

“Are you okay?” the other man asked, apparently unable to keep himself from talking. Sho couldn’t blame him – it was getting worse and worse by the day. Being on watch had to be nervewracking.

He shrugged his shoulders, keeping his eyes closed. “Are any of us okay?”

“I meant you specifically though. What Nino was saying to you. About Jun. I think he’s just one of those people who picks at scabs.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. He couldn’t exactly come out and say how close to the mark Ninomiya’s taunts had been. Jun probably hated him, hated that at the worst possible time in their lives, they were stuck together again – that one another’s survival depended on each other.

“I shouldn’t let him get to me,” Sho admitted, although saying so and doing so were different things.

“He’s been through a lot,” Aiba mused. “Saw things nobody should have to.”

“So have we.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” Aiba sighed, the only sound Sho could hear other than the trees swaying in the gentle breeze. “How much longer can we keep this up? I almost wish we hadn’t left the safety center.”

He bent his legs, hugging his knees close to his chest. Well, they’d had little choice in that regard. Even if Nino and Ohno hadn’t come scavenging, Sho was pretty damn sure someone else would have eventually. “We’re safer outside of there, I think.”

“But what about the campus?” Aiba sounded pretty depressed. Sho figured the guy had a lot of friends back there – he seemed like the type to have lots of people around him all the time. “The other safety centers?”

“Can’t second guess every decision we’ve made,” he mumbled. “We’ll just go crazy.” Although he was one to talk, wasn’t he?

“I guess you’re right.”

Aiba quieted down, and Sho thought long and hard about the stockpile of food that Ohno and Nino had inside the crypt. But yeah, going back in tonight would just be giving in, letting Ninomiya have his victory. Sho had lost more than enough lately – he didn’t need to give up his pride, much as he was stubborn about it.

But Nino hadn’t been wrong.

He fell into a fitful sleep, and when Aiba woke him, he’d curled up with his back to the grave. “I don’t know what time it is, but I’m getting tired, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he slurred, sitting back up. Aiba settled down on his belly, resting his head on top of his arms. Despite sleeping out in the open and in a cemetery no less, his new friend seemed remarkably calm about it.

“Sho?”

“Yeah?” he replied, scanning the darkness around them as best he could, making sure they weren’t hiding in the trees, lurking behind other graves.

“Something did happen, right?”

There was no need to clarify just what Aiba was asking. The other man sounded halfway asleep already, but the question lingered in the air. What would it matter if Aiba knew or didn’t know that he and Jun had a past? It didn’t make their day to day struggle to stay alive any easier. He didn’t need Aiba’s shoulder to cry on about the kohai he’d treated like shit because he didn’t know what the hell he wanted. Because he hadn’t known what to do when he woke up in the arms of a guy who trusted him, respected him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Something happened. A while ago.”

“Thought so.”

It didn’t feel like there was any weight lifted, any pressure released in telling Aiba this. It was still knotted up inside, coiled tight and not budging. Every time he saw Jun, saw his eyes and rumpled hair, he remembered. He’d let Jun down, all because he was selfish and scared, and he hadn’t been ready. It hurt. And Ninomiya was just twisting the knife.

“Go to sleep, Masaki.”


	13. Lost at Sea (Ohno/Nino)

He felt more at home on the waves than on land. Or at least he did ever since he’d taken up fishing as his hobby. People only spoke when someone caught something – the rest of the time you could relax, get lost in your thoughts or zone out completely. And unlike at work, he didn’t get yelled at for it out here.

The smell of tuna was pretty overwhelming. Much as he liked tuna, this boat had probably hauled in a lot of it before it was converted to an evacuation vessel, skirting the blockades. It had been a whole day since they’d gone, and he didn’t really know what the destination was. Toma and Ai had been flexible, asking their friends to just pull out to sea. If only they had some poles or nets, then it would be easier to pass the time. Spend a few less hours worrying if they’d made the right choice or not.

He left the deck and the sea air and went below. Nino was just where he’d left him, under a pile of blankets looking miserable. It would be a strange arrangement in the future, he figured, seeing as how he loved being on boats and Nino would rather commit suicide than be on one.

He said nothing, just lifting the blanket and laying down on his side, body up close against Nino’s back. It was safe here, warm here, and for all that Nino was grouchy and seasick, he didn’t push him away. “How are you feeling?”

“Marvelous.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yes, it’s that bad.”

He didn’t really know what to say that would change the way Nino felt. He didn’t really get the whole seasick thing anyhow. He reached an arm around Nino’s waist, feeling more than a little possessive. Wherever they went now, he wasn’t letting him go. Nino’s hand was gripping that little Wii controller tightly, holding it against his stomach like something might jump out of the water and onto the boat deck at any minute.

But they were safe now, weren’t they? Nothing was going to reach them at sea. He highly doubted any of the Infected people were capable of piloting a boat, much less conducting hijackings. If anything, Ohno was more worried about running into the Coast Guard or Navy of the countries assisting with the blockade.

He put his hand over Nino’s. “You don’t really need this any longer, do you?”

“When we go back.”

If they went back. Needless to say, leaving Jun and Sho behind had shaken him up too, pretty badly even. But what if there was no cure? Or what if there was one, but they got there too late? Ohno liked to think realistically about things, and much as the friends he’d made were involved, it was such a slim chance that he hadn’t given it too much serious thought.

Jun and Sho had voluntarily sequestered themselves, and for that, Ohno was grateful. He didn’t know if he would have been as brave. Their sacrifice had enabled the rest of them to get out safely. And who was to say that the life awaiting them when they got back to shore, whatever shore, would be better than letting the disease get them now, get them swiftly?

“You’ll be useless,” Ohno teased, pressing his lips against the back of Nino’s neck. “We’ll make it back to shore, and your legs will be like rubber. You won’t be saving anybody.”

“Shut up.”

“We’ll be saving the day, and Jun will ask ‘Where’s Nino?’ and Masaki will say ‘Him? Oh, he’s still on the boat’ – I can see that…”

“I said shut up,” Nino snapped, pulling away.

Maybe it wasn’t wise to tease him when he was sick like this. “I’m just kidding…”

Nino turned, wriggling the blankets off and slowly getting to his feet, using the bulkhead to help him. “Yeah, it’s really funny.”

“Kazu…”

Now he’d done it. Why hadn’t he seen? Why hadn’t he noticed how much it was killing him more than anyone to have left the other two behind? It was plain, written across his features, obvious in the slump of his shoulders as he slunk off. But that was the way things were, weren’t they? When he was on the waves, his problems vanished. For Kazunari, they just became worse.

He followed Nino out onto the deck of the boat, and it was getting dark. Wherever they were, he didn’t know, but night was falling. Nino stopped just at the end of the deck, gripping the rail. He came up behind him, keeping his distance.

“I’m sorry.”

“We should never have split up. Maybe then Jun…”

He shook his head. “We were ambushed, remember?”

Kazu wasn’t turning around. When he didn’t turn around, didn’t look him in the eyes, Ohno knew. He moved up, standing beside him at the rail, and lucky enough for Nino’s pride, it was too dark for the tears streaming down his cheeks to be visible. “We have to go back. We’ll have them put in somewhere, at some port. We’ll ask around, see if anyone’s come up with a cure. Or we’ll find another ship, find the military, someone who knows how to fix this.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

The Wii controller dinged against the rail, the strap loosely holding it on Nino’s wrist. “I promised, okay? I promised them.”

Ohno looked down. For all that Nino could be difficult, could complain and tease, he would do everything in his power to keep his word. And that was something extremely worrisome. What if they couldn’t make it back? What if they did and Sho and Jun were already…?

“I’m not losing anybody else!” Nino screamed, his voice hoarse and scratchy as the waves lapped against the side of the boat. “I refuse to.”

Ohno wondered if Nino would ever be okay. All he could do was grab hold of Nino by the wrist – he’d already been thin, but his body was getting thinner by the day from the stress of the constant chase.

“Don’t,” Nino said almost pitifully as Ohno opened the little snap on the controller strap, easing it away from him. He let it fall, heard the chain clank against the boat before landing in the water with a splash.

He probably wasn’t going to speak to him for a while. Ohno was aware of this, and it hurt, but maybe, just maybe, Nino would realize that none of this was his fault or within his ability to control. It was just how the world worked – before and now.

But he’d talk to Toma, talk to Ai and her friends. Maybe they could get in contact with another ship, see what they could do. If anything, Nino needed closure and he needed absolution – Ohno couldn’t give him either of those things.

All he could give was himself. He just didn’t know if it would be enough.


	14. Nothing, Everything, and Lost In-Between (Sho/Jun)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Explicit content, very dubious consent, violence

_"Do you remember university? The campus? Macro theory?"_

_And Jun just shook his head, over and over and over, staring down at his shoes that were slowly falling apart as he picked thread after thread off of the canvas. He didn't really have much energy anymore._

_Sometimes Sho would try to talk to him about tutoring, about the others, about the time they'd spent getting across the country, and Jun would just stare at him like he couldn't really see him sitting there. Like there was nothing across from him, nothing-_

\--

He woke to hands around his throat.

It was the pressure against his trachea that woke him faster than the lack of oxygen; he tried gasping, fingers automatically flying up to curl around the hands pressing against him, but Jun was straddling him, weight keeping him from arching up from the floor enough to dislodge the stranglehold.

He tried choking out something- Jun's name, a prayer, a plea for Jun to let him go- but he couldn't get anything out at all, and then Jun was in his face, so close his breath was hot and sticky against Sho's cheek. "It's better this way, it's better this way-"

"Jun," Sho finally ground out, when he managed to peel away one of Jun's hands from his neck. It would purple and bruise tomorrow, ovals from finger pads against delicate skin, and he would never know- there was no mirror in the cell. "Jun-"

There were wet droplets hitting his face, salty and hot. "Just fucking die! Just fucking die!"

He didn't know if Jun had passed over all knowledge- maybe he didn't know Sho anymore. Maybe he could remember nothing but the pain, the Infection coursing through his veins, the absence of everything in his memories.

Sho knew he was forgetting. He couldn't remember his mother's face, his ID number; he had no idea what his major had been in college, or what dorm he'd lived in. But he could still remember stumbling back to Jun's dorm room after drinks and finding his mouth in the dark, hands slipping beneath beer-damp fabric.

"Stop," Sho choked, and there was a well of something inside, something propelling him. He threw Jun off with a cry and rolled, his own hands tenderly moving against the ache in his throat. He wheezed, trying to catch his breath again, and Jun was already moving again, ramming into Sho's side with inhuman strength.

"It's better this way!" Jun kept howling, over and over, even as Sho's back hit the rough bricks of the cell wall, stealing his breath away-

\--

_"Where did we go? To school?" Jun's voice sounded so forlorn, so lost; there was nothing left. He could remember little. And as Sho sat across from him, heels flat against Jun's, he couldn't find the name._

_They'd gone to university, right? Together? "I don't know."_

_"Why are we here?" Jun asked, and he smacked his palm down against the floor, the sound ringing around them in vicious echoes. "We're going to die, we're going to die-"_

_He just kept repeating it until his voice was hoarse, until Sho had moved to wrap himself around Jun's shaking body, curling around him like he could shield him from everything they couldn't remember anymore, from-_

\--

Sho landed one good punch, struggling to right his breathing. Everything was burning; his neck, his lungs, his back, and Jun was moving like a man possessed, like something from a horror movie. His hands found Sho's shoulders, his arms, pinning him back against the wall.

"Just let me die," the other man growled, and Sho couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a plea or an order. His heart was beating impossibly fast in his chest. Jun could kill him- Jun really could kill him, he could lose it. Sho tried to push at Jun again, but he couldn't summon any of his strength. They'd been sitting in the cell for days, and he didn't know how long because he couldn't remember where they'd been before the bars had appeared. He couldn't shove Jun back.

"Jun, stop," he tried, and Jun was too far gone to hear him- maybe the words weren't even registering anymore. "Jun, please-"

And Jun's hands were trying to find Sho's neck again, struggling to find the flesh beneath the unruly waves of hair. "If I kill you, I can die, you should have let me die, I have to kill you!"

God, it was a jumble of things that didn't make sense; Jun wasn't even coherent.

"Jun," Sho gasped, losing oxygen again as fingers closed around his windpipe once more. Jun was pressed up against him, he was stuck between the dying man and the unyielding wall, and he-

\--

_Jun's hand found his across the dusty floor, entangling their fingers. "I'm going to forget you," he rasped._

_"No," Sho argued, but it had to be true. "Never. That will never happen."_

_"I don't have anything left but you," Jun kept going, like he hadn't heard Sho at all, one finger rubbing circles on the back of Sho's knuckles, "and I'm going to forget you. I love you. Do you know that? I love you."_

_Sho didn't know when he'd started crying, but there was wetness on his cheeks when he moved in, pulling Jun in and tangling his fingers in his hair. "I love you, I love you, I love-"_

\--

Sho did the only thing he could think to do. Jun was crazed, lost- but he couldn't do this, Sho couldn't let him do this. He rolled his hips against Jun's. It worked; Jun's hold on his throat loosened as Jun gasped, fingers dislodging enough for Sho to gulp down air to his burning lungs. And then Jun's mouth was on his, like a sudden rush of heat, stealing all Sho's oxygen once more. Sho could taste the blood, and he wasn't sure whose it was- it stung bitter on his tongue.

Jun bit Sho's lip hard, hard enough to break the skin, and it hurt- it hurt when Jun just sucked on the broken skin, demanding everything. Sho involuntarily cried out, but it was muffled, stolen by Jun's mouth against his own, hips grinding against Sho's.

And then Jun's mouth moved, moved to Sho's neck where he suckled and nipped without mercy, one hand holding Sho's head so he couldn't move. "Why don't you fucking let me die, why don't you let me die-"

Sho could only grasp at the fabric at Jun's shoulders, bucking up against the other man. Jun's hold was commanding more, free palm sliding down the front of Sho's shirt to the buckle of his jeans, fingers moving without conscious thought. But Sho could breathe- Jun's hands weren't around his throat anymore, cutting off his air.

"Jun," seemed to be the only thing Sho could get out, between moans that were not entirely pleasurable. Jun's teeth hurt- he had to be close to breaking skin near Sho's collarbone. And his hand was already tugging down Sho's jeans, boxers with them, demanding and hot. His fingers found Sho's cock and he pulled, wrapped so tightly that it hurt, forcing the blood to flow.

"Always do this," Jun just kept hissing, and then his mouth was on Sho's again, tongue sweeping in as he tugged at Sho's lips. When Sho groaned, Jun pushed up against him further, smacking his shoulder blades back into the brick. "Always make these decisions. We're going to die. Why can't you let me die?"

And then he growled, deep and feral and low in his throat, sounding so much not like Jun that it made Sho want to throw up. Jun grabbed both of Sho's shoulders and spun him, so fast that Sho's chin hit the wall and he bit his tongue. He tasted blood again, hot-

\--

_There were times that Jun just howled- without warning, without provocation. The noise seemed to just work itself out of his throat on its own, lacking volition and conscious thought. It would rattle the cell and echo back a thousand fold at them, and Sho would try to stop him, try to calm him down, even when his own chest constricted and he wanted to add his own scream to the chorus-_

\--

It burned. God, it burned; it hurt when Jun pushed in, hands still pinning Sho to the side of the cell. He just swallowed his outcry, biting his lip where Jun had punctured skin to keep from shouting aloud. His vision was going hazy from the hot collection of tears in the corners of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the hot trails running rivulets down his cheeks, picturing in his head the few memories he had left- Jun's eyes when he'd passed the test, his face when they found each other again after being separated.

"Should let me die," Jun said, over and over, punctuated by a thrust that sent a pang of anguish down Sho's spine.

"I love you," Sho gasped, against the brick, palms flat against the mortar and rock to attempt to keep himself from falling completely. Everything was red. "I love you."

Jun's hand found the back of his head, curling around his scalp, and then he tugged back on Sho's hair. It was like he was fighting his own body's desires to keep strangling Sho until all the life-force drained out, until his breathing was still; Sho's entire body ached, and every time Jun's hips smacked against his ass, it only made it that much worse.

"Fuck," Jun groaned, and it was the first thing that hadn't been part of the angry, shrieking rage. It only made the twisting in Sho's chest tighten further, tighten as his sternum pressed harder against the wall. "Fuck-"

There was a bubble of laughter in Sho's throat, and he didn't know when it had gotten there. "I love you."

Jun wasn't saying anything anymore- but there were groans falling from his lips, moans catching in his throat. Every part of Sho's body was on fire, grinding against the wall and Jun's hips, blood pooling beneath the skin where Jun's fingers were digging into the flesh. And then Jun moved one hand to overlap Sho's, fingers entwining against the wall- it was the first sign of the real Jun that Sho had seen since waking. He gasped, half out of relief and half out of anguish, and behind him, Jun shuddered and came, muscles tensing so much that Sho could feel them ripple through his own.

When he pulled out and stepped back, Sho's knees gave out. He fell with a smack that sounded sick even to his own ears, sagging against the wall. He wasn't sure if he wanted to continue laughing or continuing crying; he prayed to whatever deity there was that he would lose the memory come morning. He didn't want to remember this.

There were hands at the sides of his face, suddenly gentle- infinitely gentle. "I- I didn't-"

"Jun," Sho gasped, and there was salt against his lips.

Maybe they were both crying by that point. "I didn't mean-"

"I know," Sho said. And he did; he knew the emptiness. He could feel it lingering- it would find him soon, just like it had found Jun, just like it had found the others. It would be nothingness, blackness. An absence of himself, of what made him who he was. And an absence of everything that had once been important in his mind.

He still knew that. He could cling to that knowledge.

Then Jun was gone, scampering back to the wall opposite, pressing himself against it and screaming with every bit of wind he had in his lungs, until his voice cracked and shattered.

And Sho just stayed where he was for a very long time, lost.

\--

Come morning, he couldn't remember where the bruises littering his skin had come from.

\--

_"You're the only thing that ever meant anything to me."_

_It was dark, and Sho couldn't see. "I'm- glad that I could be here. With you."_

_"Where are we?"_

_"Nowhere. We're together, that's what matters."_

_Silence, and a shuffle of fabric against cement. "What's going on?"_

_"Nothing." Sho reached over for Jun's fingers in the darkness, finding them cold to the touch. "We're going to die."_


	15. The Best Chinese Food in Japan (Aiba/Becky)

Narita Airport was still closed. Apparently the runways were still being cleared of debris. People had been living in all the terminals, inside the airplanes left behind on the tarmac. Well, he thought, if you could call it living. So the flight from Korea dropped him at Haneda. Inconvenient to say the least given that the trains weren’t really running at their usual efficiency.

It took nearly three hours just to get to the center of Tokyo from the airport, and everyone around him looked exhausted as they returned to their homes. They’d all been kept out for the clean-up. Today was the first day people were cleared to go back. He didn’t really like thinking about what the clean-up had entailed as he stood behind a mother and child waiting for his next train.

Shortage of people to operate them. Shortage of train cars that were able to function. Shortage of everything now – food, fresh water, friends. The telephone networks were up again, so he spent most of the next train journey playing games on his cell phone. Tetris was something simple to focus on, something familiar. Something from before, a reminder that Japan was rebuilding and moving on.

He switched trains again, and this one had far fewer passengers heading east. It was nearly 6:00 PM – the cars were usually packed with people commuting home. His car right now had five people other than himself, and he manipulated the blocks again and again to try and ignore that alarming fact.

The train station was deserted when he arrived – apparently he was the only one for this stop. The turnstiles weren’t working since the power hadn’t been fully restored out here yet. It was pitch black as he headed down the bridge. At least he had nothing to be scared of now, right? Nothing was going to pop out and try to eat him now.

The convenience store on the corner had a few candles lit in the window. He shuffled through the aisles, grabbing some candy and potato chips. Not many other things had been delivered yet. He recognized the man tallying up the cost of the groceries with the pocket calculator, but he said nothing. Neither did the man, aside from the price. He paid and left the store with a sigh.

His desire to return was about equal with his desire to turn back and never enter the house again. At least he had a home to return to, for all that it was empty now. He walked down the narrow street, having to catch himself at the sight of a person sitting in the passageway in front of the restaurant entrance.

Fear crept into his gut, ice cold like those days when they couldn’t find Jun and Satoshi. Like when they were chased through the town by the shore. But they were all gone – Japan was cleaned up again. “Who’s there?” he asked them, watching them slowly get to their feet. Not very tall, thin – probably a woman.

She stepped forward, and he nearly cried out in surprise. Her eyes had lost that luster and spark, but he supposed his had too. Her face had been rounded, healthy – she was so much thinner now. “I made it,” she said quietly before collapsing.

He caught her just in time, dropping the bag from the convenience store to hold her thin frame in his arms.

She had made it, after all.

\--

“Well, I think biochemistry’s an exciting field. Physics is great, Mom, but…”

The girl at the other study table was wrinkling her nose as he chatted on the phone. This wasn’t the library, it was the cafeteria – and there were plenty of other seats if his call was that annoying. He turned away from her strangely green eyes and looked out the window. Some guys were playing Frisbee like they didn’t have a care in the world – or any homework waiting for them back in their dorm room. He had a lab that night for three hours and an exam in the morning. There’d be no Frisbee for him, that was for sure.

“Look, I know I’ve changed a few times now, but this is the last time, I promise.”

Green Eyes looked down at her notebook in irritation, chewing angrily on her pen cap as she tapped her fingers on the pages of her textbook.

“I have to study okay? I have a test tomorrow. Okay…” He laughed. “Okay, okay. Next weekend. No, next weekend. I promise. Okay, love you. Bye.”

He clicked the cell phone shut, and Green Eyes seemed far happier. Well, whatever. There wasn’t a ban on phones in here. He got started on rereading his notes, trying to memorize formulas. The exam was all about light and mirrors – he’d do just fine, he was sure of it.

The equations and sample problems absorbed his attention so completely that he didn’t notice when she moved her stuff to his table until she was tapping her pen on his textbook.

“Hey.”

He looked up, face to face with green. She was pretty exotic looking, as far as university students went. She wasn’t Japanese, not entirely. “Hey,” he answered back, not sure what to really say.

“The whole time you were on your phone, you kept staring at me,” she pointed out. “I don’t like being stared at.”

“I did?” he gasped, not realizing it. He’d been on the phone for a while – maybe he had been a little creepy. But he hadn’t meant to be! “I’m really sorry.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re still looking.”

“You’re sitting right across from me!”

Now she smiled. “I’m just joking, calm down.” Her eyes were a lot friendlier now, he realized. “What’s the test?”

“Physics.”

“Ah, I haven’t had any physics yet. Mostly bio and chemistry stuff. I’m pre-veterinary studies.”

Green Eyes was getting more and more interesting by the second. Seeing as how he was transferring to biochemistry as soon as he could. Well, he’d have to wait until midterms were over. “You like animals?”

“Enough to be a doctor for them, yes,” she replied. “Well, hopefully. I’m taking orgo for the third time.”

He laughed. “You can’t pass orgo?”

“It’s hard!”

Organic chemistry was the reason he was changing majors in the first place. Then again, science and math had always come easier than history and things like that. And she was really cute, in that “You were staring at me and I still came over to your table” kind of way.

“Do you need a tutor?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You asking me out?”

“I’m asking if you need a tutor.”

She smiled. “When you’re done with that test, I might take you up on that…”

“Aiba. Aiba Masaki.”

“Okay, Aiba Aiba Masaki,” she teased. “I’m Becky. Let me give you my mail address. And for the record, if you had asked me out, I would have said yes.”

\--

The house was still a mess, and the restaurant worse still. They hadn’t stayed too long before. She was light, way too light, as he carried her up the creaking stairs. His parents had just gotten a new mattress to celebrate their anniversary, so it would be the most comfortable for her. He laid her down, taking off her sandals before pulling the comforter over her.

He leaned against the wall, watching her for a few minutes. Only now was relief hitting him – in this house, all the memories hitting like a wave against the beach. He’d lost everything – the best friends he’d ever made, his family. But he had someone now, even if she was just visiting. She was here. She was here, and she was real and whatever had been out there hadn’t gotten her.

He remembered the snacks in the bag outside in the dark that he’d dropped, and he shook his head, sliding down the wall to sit instead. His face was wet – when had he started crying? When he’d set her down? When she’d collapsed in exhaustion? He didn’t bother to wipe the tears away – for the first time in a very long time, he was getting close to feeling happy again.

\--

There was a knock at his dorm room door. Maybe it was a care package from his dad. He wasn’t that far from home, but his parents were always worried he wasn’t eating right. His mom would openly belittle his dorm food choices – his dad was quieter. He just sent things from the restaurant that he could reheat.

So his stomach was excited and his tension was high when he opened the door. But it wasn’t someone from the dorm complex mail room – it was Becky. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” she was squealing as he stood aside. She was waving a test booklet around with a pleased look, and she did a happy little dance in the middle of the dorm room floor.

“Did you pass?” he asked nervously. If she didn’t, it would totally be his fault. The flash cards he’d made her had only confused her the other night when he was helping her study.

“I didn’t just pass, I got the highest score in the class!” she cried, waving the exam book in his face.

He’d done it! He’d helped her! He really had! “I’m so happy for you!” he said, and it almost felt natural when she threw her arms around his neck, and they jumped around like they’d won some sort of game on a variety show.

But when the dorm door opened again, and his roommate stood there with a confused expression – then it grew awkward. He immediately pulled his hands away, and so did she, and his face was hot. Oh, this was bad. Really bad. She just cleared her throat. “Thanks for all your help, Masaki. Really, thank you.”

He couldn’t speak, just nodding as he escorted her to the door while Taguchi helped himself to some of Aiba’s leftovers from the mini fridge. She looked at him one last time, one big smile of gratitude and hurried off down the hall.

His roommate had a mouthful of egg roll. “Sorry I interrupted.”

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” he mumbled in embarrassment. At least he didn’t think so. Sure, he liked Becky. Okay, he liked Becky a lot but…

“Just hang a sock on the doorknob, man,” Taguchi grumbled. “No big deal.”

Aiba blushed furiously, trying to get back to his lab report before he acted any more ridiculous in front of his roommate. Too late.

\--

He hadn’t slept well, even in his own bed. It really didn’t feel like his any longer, nothing in this house did. Electricity had been restored during the night, and he headed outside. The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky. If only his mood could match. He picked up the snacks he’d dropped, bringing them inside. It hurt too much to look into the restaurant so he stayed in the house.

Whoever his parents had let stay with them, they’d all stayed on the restaurant floor. All the tables and chairs were still shoved against the walls. He didn’t need to go in there. For all that it smelled like people and death, maybe there was still the slightest hint of potstickers in the air. He didn’t want to smell it.

He went to his own room. All his clothes were there, stacked up precariously on his hamper in the way that had always annoyed his mother. He was just pulling on a t-shirt when there was a gentle knock. He turned around, popping his head through the hole at the top. “You should eat something,” was the first thing he said, sounding oddly enough like his father.

She’d been crying, he could tell. But she never liked showing weakness, that much he was certain of, and they both had a lot to cry about. He let her follow him downstairs to the kitchen. He tossed her a bag of potato chips. “Maybe I can find some rice.”

She didn’t say anything else, just opening the bag. The color had returned a bit to her face – he didn’t know how long she’d been outside waiting for him. He almost didn’t want to know. He managed to find some rice, although the cooker had always been on the fritz – keeping the restaurant kitchen in order far outweighed keeping the family’s in order. But it was something.

He set the plate down for her and sat across from her. They ate in silence, and the rice wasn’t perfectly cooked as he crunched a bit on a bite here and there. “Sorry it’s so bad. My dad would have been ashamed of me right now.”

She nodded. “My parents ran a fruit shop. The neighborhood was changing though, new supermarket off the highway, so they were probably going to close down before the end of the year.”

It had probably been the same – leaving campus to go home, trying to make sure her family was okay. And just like his, they hadn’t been. Why else would she have come all the way here when her family was from Yokohama? He set down his chopsticks, squeezing his eyes shut. She should never have come here – he didn’t have anything to offer her but crunchy rice.

“Masaki…”

He covered his face with his hands. Sho and Jun were somewhere in Korea, Ohno and Nino were somewhere else, and his parents were in the back yard. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

She was beside him then, rubbing his back, and he cried, as hard as he had the first time he’d come home. As hard as he’d wanted to when he said goodbye in the Seoul hospital to someone who didn’t even know his name any longer.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out. “I’m not a good chef. I’m not like him.”

\--

She was fascinated by the birthmark on his shoulder. He was so used to the patch of different colored skin, but she was greatly amused, tracing her finger around the edge of it. “So next weekend you should come try our food. It’s the best Chinese food in Japan.”

“Oh really?” she asked, poking him in the chin.

He leaned back against the pillow, pulling her closer. “It really is. My dad’s still kind of mad I went to college. He wanted me to take over the place, but I think my brother will turn out to be the better chef in the end.”

“Well, what about managing it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he muttered with a quiet laugh. It was strange, being in his small dorm bed with her. He felt like he should give her everything. Wasn’t that what a real boyfriend was supposed to do? He didn’t have a part-time job because school and labs and studying took up all his free time.

He couldn’t buy her presents or take her out, but she was happy to study together in the cafeteria or get drinks out of the vending machine and sit on the quad. She just liked being near him, and he liked being near her. Most people didn’t take him seriously. Not that Becky took him seriously – but she cared about him more than any girl ever had before. He was pretty damn lucky.

She changed the subject, leaning her chin against his shoulder. “So did you fill out your form yet?”

He grumbled. “No, not yet.”

“Well, it’s getting later and later. You won’t be able to change until next term at this rate.”

“I’ve been busy,” he reminded her, tickling her underneath the blanket. “I was supposed to get all the paperwork done tonight.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she teased. Finally, she held out her pinky. “I promise to try your Dad’s food if you promise to get your paperwork turned in tomorrow.”

He hated paperwork. Hated filling out little boxes because his handwriting sometimes got a little messy or out of control. And he hated filling out the “reason for changing course of study” box – they’d made him do it all over again last time since “Physics is cool” had apparently not been a good enough reason.

Aiba linked his pinky with hers. “It’s a promise. And if you don’t like the food, then I’m probably going to dump you.”

She smiled big and laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”

There was a knock at the door. Well, it wasn’t Taguchi this time – he’d gone home for a death in the family. “Dorm’s getting evacuated!” they heard. “Gather your things!”

He sighed. What the hell?

\--

It took a few days, but they cleaned up the restaurant. He hadn’t wanted to, not initially. Finally, she’d dragged him in there and handed him a mop and bucket. He was usually unable to resist her when she gave orders. “If you’re going to live here, Masaki, then you need to clean it up.”

He just rolled his eyes and got to cleaning. Nino had called the night before. He and Ohno were in Tokyo – the banks were finally getting back to normal so he could finally take money out. His landlord had died, so it wasn’t like there was anyone to pay rent to, but Nino liked knowing where his money was at all times.

They’d invited him for a visit, but he’d declined. He’d just be in the way right now – the whole country was cleaning up, rebuilding. He had to take care of his own life first.

She cleaned up all the silverware, plates, everything that had been sparkling when his dad ran the kitchen. He washed away bits of food, stains from too many people living in the restaurant. “Let’s take a break,” she said, mid-afternoon. She’d cleaned off the counter beside the stove and already had a pan ready. “You said the food here’s good. Show me.”

“But we don’t have any…” She interrupted him, pulling out a bag of fresh ingredients from the big refrigerator. Apparently she’d run to the store while he was still asleep. “…food.”

“I think there’s enough for fried rice. Make me some fried rice.”

He flushed. “I can’t make it as well as my dad could. It won’t be the same.”

“I’m not looking for the same,” she told him, earnestness in her eyes. The eyes that had drawn him in the first time he saw her, the eyes he remembered each night no matter where he’d been sleeping – gymnasium, crypt, apartment of a stranger. “Masaki, just make it the way you know how.”

He nodded. “Well, then get out of my kitchen. Let the master get to work.”

She giggled. “I’ll go do some laundry. They say the water’s good for non-essential stuff again. If you’d woken up and watched the news, you’d know that too.”

“Don’t shrink my jeans.”

She was already halfway to the house. “I won’t shrink anything, shut up!”

He looked at the ingredients, laying them out. It was like science, wasn’t it? Just put the right materials together and get the perfect reaction. “Alright, let’s go,” he said to himself.

\--

They were in line for the gyms. Everyone was noisy, and he held Becky’s hand tight. What the hell was going on?

“I don’t like this. I wonder if there’s been a terrorist attack,” she mumbled, squeezing his fingers.

“Oh, maybe it’s just a readiness drill. You know the government’s gotta keep us on our toes, right?”

“I’m already on my toes,” she complained. “How long is this line?”

A man with a bullhorn said that girls had to go one way and guys another. “We’ll meet up when this is over.”

“Your room?”

“If not there, then at my family’s restaurant,” he joked, turning her around and unzipping her backpack. “Where are they?”

She jerked, trying to shake him off. “Hey! Those are mine!”

He laughed, grabbing the box of animal crackers out of the bag. “And now they’re mine, come on, I’m hungry.”

She pulled her bag around, zipping it back up. “It’s this late, and you’re dying for animal crackers.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said as he bit the leg off of a hippo. He leaned down. “Now give me a kiss.”

“No way.”

“Come on, we’re getting separated. You can see the line splitting right there, give me a kiss.”

She planted one on his cheek and headed the other direction with the rest of the girls. He laughed as she stuck her tongue out at him. Hopefully this wouldn’t take so long – he had to get to the dean’s office in the morning.

\--

He made a little trumpet-ish noise as he moved from the kitchen and out onto the restaurant floor. She’d set the table and poured some water for them – real water out of the tap. She was sitting, eyes closed, nearly bouncing in her seat. “It smells so good!”

Aiba set the plates down. “Well, that’s probably because it is good.”

“So modest.”

He grinned. “You can open your eyes.” He was pretty darn impressed – sure it wasn’t a comparison to his father’s fried rice, but nothing ever could be. That was what he had to accept, wasn’t it?

They dug in, eating eagerly. He hadn’t seen her look so blissful since…well, not for a long time. He just wanted to make her happy – her family was gone, most of her friends were gone. She didn’t have to say it – he could see it in her eyes. They had each other now, and that was what really mattered in the end.

“Pretty good,” she said, when they were finished eating. “I’m glad I came.”

“Well, it’s the best Chinese food in Japan, you know.”

She smiled, nodding in agreement. “It is. Not going to dump me?”

He laughed. “Guess I don’t have to now, huh?”

He was rewarded with a clump of fried rice to the nose. Some things didn’t really change, did they?


	16. Nowhere to Go but Up

Moving back into the dorms seemed like it should be a surreal experience- most of the other students were acting like it was, but for Jun, it was new. He didn't remember living there before, though the official school records proved that he indeed had, and he found himself lost in the general melancholy that surrounded all of the activities. It was almost a somber ritual, tinged in sadness that no one could quite shake.

He'd already begun studying, nose shoved in the catch-up book the school had provided him with; he had transcripts to prove he'd taken classes, but no recollection of what the courses had intended to instruct him in. It was difficult to move to higher level ones without the background knowledge, but it was unfair, his parents argued, to make them pay for him taking it all over again. Jun gathered that the university largely just didn't know what to do with him- as a "special case", deemed so by the recovery administration, he was granted a number of privileges. He felt just about as lost as the Registrar's office felt in terms of his own education.

It was evening, just past dinner, when he got the first knock on his door.

He opened it to find a girl with two braids, bangs, and a face that looked like it had seen a lot. "It took me awhile to track you down," she said.

Jun just stared at her. "Are you from Student Affairs?"

"No," she said, and the look that crossed her features then seemed suddenly hesitant. "Jun- it's me. Mao. We were in the Economics department together, remember?"

"I'm sorry," Jun said. He'd never seen the girl standing in front of him before in his life, at least not in regards to the memories he had. And her face was falling, crumbling, tears beginning to glisten in the corners of her eyes as one hand moved up to wipe at her cheeks a bit in a pre-emptive motion.

"Oh, God," she whispered, and Jun felt bad for her then, standing in his doorway like she'd been expecting something different. He opened the portal wider to let her in- it was the least he could do. She stumbled in through the opening and ended up on his desk chair, head in her hands. The stance half-muffled all her words. "I'd heard rumors but I didn't- I didn't think-"

It was the first Jun had heard of anyone talking about him- or, more correctly, his situation. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, but he supposed it was largely inevitable.

Mao looked up at him with shimmering eyes. "You really don't remember?"

"I'm sorry," he just said again, for lack of anything else to reply with.

Mao wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands, but didn't catch all the tears; a few managed to trickle down her cheeks to her chin. Her lower lip was trembling. It seemed like she was trying very hard to fight against the onslaught, and was slowly losing. "I came to tell you about the memorial they're having. For the students who... aren't coming back."

"Oh," he said. "Okay."

"I guess you don't remember, but we had friends," Mao said, mostly to her palms, lying face up in her lap as she stared down at them. "And they didn't... make it. So I thought you might want to go."

She was pretty obviously barely holding her composure together, and Jun felt guilty despite everything; he'd had friends, possibly good ones, and they had died, and he couldn't even remember them. Not even enough to grieve at their passing. And the girl who could was sitting in his dorm in tears because he couldn't remember her, either.

It felt like a bad dream- but then again, most of Jun's life since the hospital had felt like he was walking through some kind of daze.

"I'll go with you," he promised. "To the memorial."

There were renewed tears in her eyes when she looked up at him again. "Really?"

God, he felt guilty. "Yes. Really."

\--

The memorial was a candlelight vigil where members of the baseball team passed out tapers stuck into little plastic funnels to all the students who showed up on the quad. Somebody in the administration had made a plaque- or at least had it commissioned- out of marble with all of the students' names on it that hadn't survived the outbreak. There were quite a few, enough for several columns worth if not more, because Jun could only see half of it from his position next to Mao near the back row. A guy with a Peace Corp. t-shirt came around and lit all their candles for them as the orchestra played a couple of somber pieces by Bach.

It was odd to be standing in a throng of students obviously moved by the display when Jun could remember nothing himself. He held his plastic candle-holder in one hand and watched the wax drip down the side while the president of the university gave his address; it was a nice speech, but it only really served to double the anxious coils in Jun's stomach.

The Government of the Student Body President read the list of names once the president's speech was finished. There were a lot of people around him breaking down, leaning against one another.

Next to him, Mao was crying silently.

When the vigil was over, Jun walked her back to her dorm room without really knowing what to do. She was still crying- shoulders shaking as she wiped away tears. She left the door open once they arrived in what he could only assume was an invitation to follow her inside.

She sat down on the bed with her arms wrapped around her chest. "Eita was really smart, you know."

"Yeah," Jun said, though he didn't. He didn't even know who they were mourning- there had been hundreds of names, and none of them were familiar to him.

"He had a full-ride," Mao continued. "And he would help us study even when he didn't need to. He used to make up study games for us, in the library. It would be really late, and we'd all be running on nothing but vending machine soda."

Jun moved to sit next to her on the mattress, wincing when the dorm bed creaked loudly under his weight. Mao didn't even seem to notice- she seemed lost in her own world, her own grief, that was over-powering and all-encompassing.

"Sometimes," Mao said, and then laughed a little, holding her hands up, "he would write up study guides and hide them around the library. And we'd have to answer riddles to try and find them in the books he chose."

Her laughter broke. "And Tamaki, he was quiet but he cared about everyone. He really did."

Jun wasn't sure what to do. He assumed since she hadn't kicked him out yet that his presence was enough- maybe comforting in a way he didn't necessarily have to understand. But Mao kept wiping at her cheeks and crying, and he was starting to feel like he was a bit unnecessary.

"They sounded like good guys," he said, lamely. It sounded stupid as soon as it left his mouth.

"They were," Mao said. "They were my friends. They were your friends."

In a life that he could no longer remember, maybe.

"Why did we live?" Mao asked, and she sounded very, very small. "Why did we live and they died?"

Jun's throat had closed, so he couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to. It was the same question he'd been asking himself since awakening in the hospital- maybe there wasn't an answer at all. But it was difficult to comprehend when he didn't even know what had happened prior to Korea, and there were those around him mourning for people who hadn't been as lucky.

"Lucky". The nickname from the nurse continued to be an ironic sting on the back of his tongue.

God, he hated that nickname.

"I don't know," he answered as honestly as possible, and Mao turned to him, looking up through dark lashes and salty-tipped bangs.

He knew he shouldn't do it. He knew as soon as her eyes fluttered closed, tears still glistening on her cheeks as he leaned in- he felt it resonating in his bones clearer than anything else had been since waking up. But it was the first time he'd really felt something, really felt alive; he wasn't dead, he wasn't a memory-less scientific lab-rat, he was a person. He had meaning, had a heart.

Mao's mouth was very soft, and tasted like the remnants of her tears. She was still crying; he could feel the hitches against his mouth, trembling like her lips were as they moved against his. She gave out a breathy little cry that was probably mostly from sadness and he swallowed it, one hand moving up to slide between silky strands of her hair.

Kissing her felt good. Kissing her felt normal.

He was sure that he at least knew what normal felt like.

Her hands wormed their way underneath his shirt, near his collar. They were very warm against his skin- or else the room was simply very warm, and the exposed flesh was reacting to it. She sighed a little against his mouth, parting her lips to grant him access.

And then his conscience caught up with his body, and he pulled away. "Wait," he gasped, because her hands were saying to do anything but, skimming across his chest.

"Why, why," she was crying, still crying, fresh tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

Because I don't know you.

"You don't want this," he ended up whispering instead, against her hair when she threw her arms around his shoulders. She just shook against him, sobbing in earnest again, and he spent a long time simply holding her, wishing he could say something that would make everything alright again.

The truth was, he knew there was nothing.

And he was beginning to suspect it was the same for him.


	17. You Can't Go Home Again

He and his sister had always gotten along well. She was older and responsible, always trying to be agreeable. He was younger and wasn’t terribly interested in causing chaos within the family. He had work to occupy most of his time, hobbies to take up the rest. There was little to fight about.

She’d gotten married several years back, and he was an uncle to a cute, if noisy little boy. It was strange then, to go back to the house he visited at least once a month and find it far quieter. The little boy stayed in his room, and his sister didn’t try to force him to come out and greet his uncle. Her husband was at work, but only because his office building hadn’t been full of bodies or garbage and debris.

She poured them tea, and her attention was elsewhere – her son’s bedroom door, the television, a picture on the wall he’d drawn as a gag wedding gift for her. “Where are you staying?” she asked finally.

“With Kazunari. With my friend.” It was best to leave it there.

She nodded. “We have the spare room here if you’d like.”

“It’s fine. It’s not far from work.” It was six train stops, actually. “It’s close to Taro’s school.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he answered, watching the commentator on the news try to get people interested in some movie premiere that the Infection had delayed. It was all about getting back to normal – especially now that the cast was all back in Japan. The main stars, like most with connections, had been able to get out in the early days. “Yeah, I could pick him up if you’re ever busy.”

“That would be nice, Satoshi, thank you.”

Small talk was getting tiresome. He didn’t really enjoy talking about things that weren’t necessary. She’d invited him by for a good reason, not something he was excited to discuss, but at least it was necessary. He’d already been over there a few times, putting things in boxes and getting them moved to Nino’s place. The salvageable stuff at least.

Finally, she broached the topic. “If we get it professionally cleaned, we might be able to rent it out. Make some money.”

“We could do that, sure,” he answered. But who had money right now? They wouldn’t make back what it had been worth before everything happened. Then again, they’d have the same problem if they put the whole house on the market.

“I’ll look into it then. See what our options are.” Always responsible, his sister. She hadn’t lived in that house for years, not since she’d gotten married, but their parents would have wanted her to take care of this, not him. He could barely buy clothes for himself.

They chatted further about dividing up some of the other things, selling some. The conversation never veered to anything else. The funeral had been a week earlier, so he doubted anything of that nature would come up, not today.

Her husband came home from work, quiet as always, which suited him just fine. They exchanged nods, knowing there was more in it than they felt like saying out loud. “I’m glad you’re alive – my wife was so worried.” “I’m glad you’re alive – I need you to take care of my sister.”

He excused himself then, standing outside Taro’s door and saying goodbye. The little ones didn’t have to be forced, not now, maybe not ever. He crouched down, pulling the folded up paper from his pocket. “I’ll leave something under the door for you, Taro. Okay?”

He put the little cartoon fish he’d drawn down, sliding it halfway underneath. When the paper was snatched up, disappearing, he got back up. His sister gave him a weak smile in thanks, escorting him to the door.

Instead of going back to Kazunari’s place, he went the other way, back to the house. It was easier when he came with cardboard boxes and packing tape. Now he was just alone. He still had the key on his key ring, and if they rented it to tenants, he’d probably have to give it up. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d just tell his sister he lost it – she’d believe that about him.

“I’m home,” he said, taking his shoes off in the entryway.

As he expected, nobody answered back.

He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, deciding to settle in at least for a while.


	18. Reunion

For all his chattering in the Korean hospital, Aiba refused to divulge details once Jun got out and back into Japan. Aiba hadn't gone back to school; he'd taken up at his parents' restaurant and got the place running again, and he was always good at calling once a week to see how Jun was doing and entertain him with stories of misadventures in cooking and attempting to please customers. Jun still didn't know who Aiba was- but he liked getting the calls, he liked talking to him, and he was beginning to think that they'd been fairly good friends prior to the whiteness that engulfed everything in his memory before waking up in a sterile hospital cot with tubes running in his arms.

In fact, he considered Aiba a friend. One of his only friends.

But whenever Jun asked about it- what had happened, where did we meet, how do we know each other, how did I come to be in the hospital- Aiba would lock up and change the subject. He was a slippery catch, impossible to pin down when he wanted to side-step a conversation. And it was maddening that Jun couldn't get solid information on what the hell he'd been doing before the Korean hospital.

He had months of his "new life", as Aiba took to calling it, and still nothing on what had gone on before it. His parents didn't know- but he got stories from them, stories about safety centers and quarantines, and he could only assume that his own life had moved in a similar manner, down the same street. Hadn't everyone's? That's what he had been informed of, lying in those white bed sheets for weeks.

Sometimes at night, he thought maybe it was better that way, even if he'd never admit it to anyone else.

He was bent over one of the cram books, furiously scribbling into a notepad when Aiba called again- it was finally getting colder, autumn falling seamlessly into winter, and he'd caved and pulled a sweater on over his head to sit at his desk. He glanced at the caller ID. He didn't have a lot of people in his contacts yet; apparently, he'd lost his phone at some point, and going back to school really only put him in contact with the professors helping him play catch-up.

"Hi," he said, mobile against his ear. He could hear clanging in the background, like pots against the stovetop. "Are you cooking right now?"

"Ouch!" came Aiba's slightly muffled explanation, and then, "no, no. Well, sort of! It's a long story. I have a proposition for you!"

Jun crossed out one of the answers he'd just written, a clean strike-through of the characters. "I'm not trying any more of your trial dishes- the last one had so much curry powder I thought I was going to die."

"It's not that kind of request," Aiba replied, though he sounded slightly offended. "Are you busy next weekend?"

He had to know the answer. Jun's entire life was attempting to find the niche that he'd had before losing his memories; trying to catch up in coursework, being re-told stories of his childhood by his family, relearning things he'd no doubt once been fluent in. It was a hectic jumble of confusion that never really seemed to lessen, because every time something was explained, five new questions popped out on the peripheral fringe.

And all of it, all of it was rolled into the larger picture, of a country struggling to rebuild and a population trying to learn to live again.

"Maybe," Jun answered, finally.

There was a pause, and then the background noise dropped away, like Aiba was moving through the building and away from the kitchen. "You should come out here for dinner."

"It's kind of a trip, you know."

"I know, I know," Aiba said. "But I think you should be here. Nino and Ohno are stopping by."

There were those names again- names he'd never been able to put with faces, names that kept coming up in conversations with Aiba. They had no meaning to him; he was quite certain that they were supposed to, because whenever Aiba used them, there was a sort of hushed reverence, an audible emotional attachment that Jun could see from the sidelines- see, but not touch.

The doctors told him that he'd probably never regain his memories. Things were sketchy, fuzzy from the infection and subsequent vaccine, but that was the one thing Jun got from all of them- "probably not", they said. "Chances are slim."

"Oh," was all he said, because he wasn't sure what else was appropriate. It meant something to Aiba- it was supposed to mean something to him, too. "I see."

"So are you coming?"

He had work to do. He had books to read, and information to re-absorb, and a million other things that needed to be done before a side trip to Chiba.

But this could be a chance to learn about all the bits he was missing.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm coming."

\--

The night before, Jun couldn't sleep. He didn't think it was nerves, necessarily- just the idea that he was possibly reconnecting dots to which the threads had been shattered left him jittery. He lay for a long time staring up at the ceiling, at the street lights flickering across the mottled surface with the passing cars.

After awhile, he turned over and clicked on the small bed lamp attached to the side of his bed with a metal clamp. He kept very little on the small table next to his mattress; his alarm clock, his phone when he slept, the book light, and beneath the clock radio, the tattered, worn, stained notebook that Aiba had given him in the Korean hospital.

He'd looked through it a hundred times. He'd leafed through the pages in desperation, in hope, in frustrated anger, and every time, he'd seen the same thing: his own handwriting staring up at him conveying things he didn't remember writing. Some of the things he didn't remember period. The edges of the pages were water-soaked and curled, ripped away, torn, and bent in every direction. But none of it explained the secrets held within the spine.

Jun read slowly through the book, turning each page with care, with deliberateness.

Maybe- maybe tomorrow, he'd finally get some answers. Maybe tomorrow there would be some light shed on the dark tunnel he'd been unable to stumble his way through.

As he got to the last, blood-splattered page, he bit his lip. Staring at the scrawl didn't help- he'd tried that for hours initially, when the other form beyond the curtain was sleeping, and it still meant nothing. But thinking about the smile, the eyes...

... his stomach twisted.

He closed the planner and shoved the book under his pillow, flopping back down against it and trying desperately to squash the hope he knew was futile.

\--

The trains still weren't operating under "normal" schedules- posters covered the station walls with information and times, running schedules and notices. Jun couldn't remember being in the stations before, but he knew from pictures that there had been far more people, much more activity. There was an edge of disquiet to his travels that he couldn't quite place, and knew had to be a result of the shadow of old memories colliding with rough edges against his current situation.

He kept his iPod on as he traveled, trying to lose himself in the music. It had been a gift from his sister, given through teary eyes and bone-crushing hugs, murmured cries of you're alive, you're alive that he still didn't entirely understand.

Chiba was quiet- more so than Tokyo, because the metropolitan areas were re-filling faster. Jun walked slowly, giving himself some time. It felt like too soon that he ended up in front of Aiba's family restaurant. He'd been there before; Aiba had a habit of inviting him to dinners where he stuffed him full of food and dishes and laughed about how Becky had saved him from almost losing an arm wrestling with the oven.

This time felt like it should be more important.

He stood for a long time, until there were footsteps behind him.

"Oh," came the voice. "Aiba didn't say you'd be here, too."

Jun turned, swallowing down bundled, frayed nerves that buzzed like pin-pricks of electricity. Sho was there, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. There wasn't an expression on his features that Jun could read- or maybe there was, and Jun just didn't know how to identify it. He wondered if there was anxiety splayed all over his own face.

"Yeah," Jun replied. Aiba had been mum on mentioning Sho's presence.

The other man shifted between feet a little, glancing up at the restaurant sign. "I guess we're supposed to know the two we are meeting?"

"Something like that." They'd never really talked in the hospital about their situation- they'd been found together, Jun knew that much. He had the planner in his backpack as proof that there had been something there, something uniting them. But he and Sho had never discussed why they'd been in the same place, how they'd known each other. Both skirted around the conversation, and when they'd been discharged, that had largely been it- the end.

Jun didn't even have the man's phone number.

"So," Sho started, slowly, "how are you?"

"Good."

Ask him, Jun's brain was screaming. Ask him if he remembers, if he knows. You have the planner, show him, see if he can recall anything- and the silence just stretched between them, weighing heavily on Jun's shoulders. It strangled him and clogged his throat, and he couldn't get anything out.

When he finally managed to choke the lump back down and opened his mouth to say something- anything- the front door opened, and Aiba poked his head out. "I thought I heard something! You guys should come in and say hi, they're already here."

Jun closed his mouth with a snap. Sho started for the door, and Jun followed, feeling infinitely stupid. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come.

Aiba was standing just in the door, grinning broadly like an idiot- he obviously expected something. He expected the entire thing to bring back a slew of memories and fix everything. Jun filed in behind Sho and glanced down the hall. There were two figures standing near the end- one had his hands in his pockets, the other had his arms crossed.

He recognized neither.

But he was expected to do something, so he lifted a hand and gave a little wave. "Hi."

"Hey," Sho mimicked. Jun could tell just by the blank expression on Sho's face that he was feeling the same lack of recollection, the same nothingness that coated the entirety of existence. The shorter of the two was smiling at them, smiling like he was glad to see them. There was warmth there that Jun hadn't expected. The other one, the one with his arms crossed and the DS sticking out of his jacket pocket- his eyes were wide, face set.

There was a long moment of awkward silence, when even Aiba couldn't seem to come up with anything to say, nothing to bridge together the disjointed pieces, and then the one with the DS ducked his head, fingers moving up to press against his eyelids. "Ah. I- need to step out. Need air."

Jun hadn't missed the shimmering that was gathering at the corners, threatening to spill over. DS disappeared down the back hallway, leaving a guilty feeling on the back of Jun's tongue that he couldn't quite explain.

For some reason, seeing him near tears- it felt wrong.

"Hi," the other figure said, stepping forward with warm smile still in place. "I'm Ohno. I'm really glad to see you two. You look like you're doing well."

"Thank you," Sho said. It seemed to be an automatic response.

To the side, Aiba looked infinitely disappointed, hands falling back down to his sides. "You really don't remember? Not at all? They were with us, they helped us."

"I'm sorry," Jun said, to both of them- to everyone, to the situation. To all the things he couldn't control and the ripped planner in his bag he couldn't decipher. "I- I'm really sorry."

And Ohno put a hand on his arm, fingers curling. "No, don't be sorry. There's nothing to be sorry about."

"Where did Nino go?" Aiba asked, just as the man in question came back in, eyes tinged a bit with red, but bearing no other indication of the emotions he'd been fighting against outside.

Nino stuck his hand out, almost forcibly. "Good to see you. Again. Sort of."

Jun shook his hand gingerly. Nino already felt like a puzzle, like something where the pieces hid the inside and Jun had little hope of getting them apart to peer in. Sho did the same, and Aiba, though he looked so sad, so forlorn, like he'd been carrying so much hope, clapped his hands together again. "Well, should we eat?"

Becky met them in the kitchen, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. "I'm glad you could make it," she said, with her infectious grin. Jun liked her- the few times he'd visited the restaurant, she'd gone out of her way to make him feel comfortable, and to let him and Aiba talk on their own terms without butting in. She was clever and funny- he liked her a lot.

Jun was seated next to Sho for dinner, and he didn't miss Aiba's slightly coy glance that was aimed in his direction when he sat down. Aiba really didn't talk about Sho much, not during their phone calls, not during anything, but that one look- there had to have been something. Something the others knew about, something obvious.

Obvious to everyone but them, it seemed.

"Are you both back in school?" Ohno asked.

"Mm," Sho agreed. "It's really hard. I mean- I feel like I'm hopelessly behind and I just... started, really."

Everything felt like they just started- they had, in a sense. Jun was buried under the same never-ending pile of work.

"But I'm glad," Ohno said, and Jun liked the way his eyes crinkled when his smile reached them. "Are you living together?"

Jun's stomach dropped. There was a long silence, and then Sho laughed nervously, utensils clinking against porcelain. "What?"

"Nothing," Nino said, smoothly, cutting in like it was second nature. There was a look shared between him and Ohno on the other side of the table, quick but meaningful. "Forget it. I think we should toast, to the rebuilding. To Japan."

Jun could only hope that it wasn't obvious how bad his fingers were trembling as he raised his glass a few inches off the table, feeling like he had just been dropped in the middle of the most nerve-wracking, anxiety-ridden out of body experience ever.

"To Japan."

\--

Aiba looked kind of sad when they all got ready to leave again, to catch the last trains. He kept flitting around as they shrugged their jackets back on. Jun felt oddly out of place, like he couldn't figure out what his role in the small group was supposed to be.

And Sho was heading out the door with a backwards wave, with a smile, and he would disappear again into all the things Jun didn't know.

"We're really glad that you guys ended up in one piece," Nino said, near Jun's right, as Jun watched the door swing shut behind Sho's form.

It seemed like there was something else tingling his words, but Jun couldn't figure out what it was. "Yeah. Get that a lot."

"It must be hard," the shorter man continued, "to not remember."

There it was again- that emphasis. It should mean something. It was heavy, weighted; Jun swallowed hard, chest tightening. He wanted to ask and was terrified to. It was like suddenly facing what he'd been missing, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted it anymore.

But he had little to lose. He'd already lost so much. "What do you mean?"

When he looked at Nino, the other man just raised both eyebrows and glanced at the door Sho had left through. And he said nothing more, staying infuriatingly silent, leaving Jun to guestimate what was hidden between the lines, lines that weren't straight, weren't clear.

Jun found himself unable to breathe.

"Aiba, I'll- I'll call you later," he said, and pushed the door open with more force than was necessary. There was only one way that Sho could have gone for the train station, but he had a head start, and there were people out on the streets. The sun was setting, casting shadows over everything, just like the vestiges of Jun's memory.

He ran down the street, ignoring the sidewalk, trying to find the familiar back of Sho's coat. He couldn't have gotten that far, he couldn't have lost him already- there. Ahead.

"Sho!"

The figure stilled, turning, allowing Jun to catch up a little bit. Jun's mouth had gone very dry, like he'd been chewing on cotton balls.

"I- I think we should catch up," he said, lamely, feeling stupid. "I mean, later. Sometime."

For a long moment, he thought Sho was going to refuse, and then the other man nodded. "Okay. Sure."

"I... do you want my phone number?" Jun asked.

And when the smile slid over Sho's features, lighting his face, Jun's entire stomach felt like it turned inside out.

"Yeah. I'd like that."


	19. I Won't Leave (Aiba/Becky)

They didn’t get too many calls or mails on their phones now. People were still hurting, still staying locally. Too many times, a message would go out and return with a “This phone no longer in service” reply, and that just meant one less friend. So sometimes it was better not knowing.

Becky got a call every day like clockwork, and though it had taken them a few weeks to get their lives in order, Aiba thought they were getting closer to better. They still had some cleaning to do, some homework of the chef variety to do, but the restaurant could re-open in a month or so. She wore a smile every day, not as bright or natural as it had been, but his smiles were fewer too.

He asked why she wouldn’t take the call, and she never replied, just checking the caller ID, frowning and shutting the phone off. Then she’d go back to whatever she’d been doing, leaving him wondering. Maybe it was one of her friends, trying to get in touch, or a member of her family. Why wouldn’t she want to know?

One day, the phone rang, as it always did, but she was in the bath. He didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to invade her privacy. The last thing he needed was her to be mad with him now that he had her back in his life. But she was just going to keep hurting if the phone rang every day without fail.

“Hello, this is Becky’s phone. Aiba Masaki speaking.”

It wasn’t a friend or a relative. It was a real estate firm inquiring about her parents’ home, about their fruit shop. Would Miss Vaughn be coming to close out the estate and take her share from the sale of the home and business?

He was frozen. This wasn’t a call he would have been able to take on his own, asking if he was ready to take the money from the sale of the place he called home for so long. She hadn’t wanted to face it yet. She hadn’t been ready. Guilt coursed through him, and he stumbled out an answer.

“Miss Vaughn and I will go to Yokohama next week to settle things. Thank you very much.”

He confessed what he’d done and agreed to on her behalf immediately. She was still in a bathrobe. Her face fell, but she didn’t cry. All she did was take her phone and shut it off before tossing it back on the kitchen table and heading upstairs.

He followed. “Becky, I’m sorry. I thought it might be a cousin or a friend or...”

The door to his parents’ bedroom slammed shut, leaving him alone in the hall.

\--

The next week was quiet. She wouldn’t speak to him, busying herself with tasks around the restaurant that needed to be done. When they ate together, he would talk, asking her questions, asking for her opinion on what to paint the restaurant dining room. She didn’t respond, but he kept on talking. He couldn’t let it be completely silent or he’d go crazy.

The time for Yokohama had come, and she didn’t say no, simply following him to his family’s car that had miraculously survived the ordeal. He’d packed clothes for them, reserving a room at one of the hotels in Yokohama that still was operating. Most hotels and inns in the region were housing displaced people and families - he was lucky to get a room for them at all. That way, she wouldn’t have to stay in the house. He hoped she’d like that.

They settled the sale of the fruit shop first. She spoke quietly but knowledgeably about the business, keeping the conversation light but professional with the estate agents and the lawyer. As soon as the deal was complete, her face darkened again. He listened to the TV in the hotel room, laying on the rollaway cot he’d asked for to not offend her by expecting to share a bed.

The house was the next day, and despite his concern for her, she showed little sorrow in dealing with the sale and getting her own things together to move to Chiba. It had been unspoken between them, but she was going to stay at the house with him. Even with their quarrel, it seemed that she wasn’t changing her mind. That made him happy. They got the car packed up and returned to the hotel.

\--

There was some kind of spring poking him in the back, and it was keeping him awake. He tried to get onto his side, only taking up the part of the rollaway that was pokey spring free, but it was even more uncomfortable. He sighed, picking up the pillow and blanket and laying down on the floor beside the bed.

The clock on the bedside table read 3:00 AM - they’d be getting up in a few hours to head back, and he was going to be cranky the rest of the day with such fitful sleep. He was just shutting his eyes when he heard her crying, heard her saying his name so sadly that he nearly knocked his head on the rollaway when he sat up.

“Becky?” he asked, squinting in the dark. He clambered up onto the bed, slipping under the blankets.

She was awake, crawling to him desperately. Her arms went around his neck, and she curled up against his side. “You won’t go. You won’t go, Masaki, will you?”

“Of course not,” he whispered, running his fingers through her hair, through the tangles that had formed during her restless sleep.

“They were in pieces when I found them. In pieces,” she said, her voice quivering. “Don’t leave me, okay? Please don’t leave me.”

Her parents. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to come to the house - he’d found his own family, but they hadn’t been attacked. He wouldn’t have been able to bear it if they had been. He was such a fool forcing her back here. Such a stupid idiot. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry. I won’t go anywhere.”

She moved first, bringing a hand to either side of his face. Her lips were soft, warm and familiar as she maneuvered her way atop him. He shuddered between each desperate kiss she placed on his mouth, listening to her gasp for air as she cried. She elbowed him on accident as she wriggled her pajama bottoms down. He caught her by the arm. “We don’t have to...”

She was insistent and needy, and when his hand found the soft skin of her thigh, he couldn’t control himself either. His hips were moving of their own accord, rising up off the mattress as she moved, rubbing herself against the fabric of his shorts. He could feel her teardrops on his face, rolling down his cheek as he moved his hand to her back, finding her spine.

They reached together for the shorts, and he groaned as she laid a trail of kisses along his jaw. The blankets were all tangled up at his feet, and he wanted to laugh, but she was still crying. She was still crying, and she needed him to be strong right now when she just couldn’t be.

Her hands were in his hair, back to his face, and then one moved between them, bringing them together for the first time in a while. He nearly hissed at the contact, wanting to arch up and into her fully, but he let her set the pace, let her decide how it would go. She needed him to be here, needed him to be real. He just embraced her, letting her move freely as she needed to, and the sensation was making him shake from his head to the tip of his toes.

Nothing needed to be said as her tears still fell and her hair was a curtain in front of her face. Their breathing grew ragged, and she pulled, getting him to sit up. She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face there to hide her cries. Relief, sadness, joy - it was all mingled there, and he just held onto her, fingers fisting in her hair.

He had to be strong for her. He had to. He slowly let his mind clear, letting his body take over, thrusting harder and matching her frenzied pace. She gasped at the feeling, shivering in his arms, letting out a wordless cry as he came within her. “I won’t leave. I won’t leave,” he repeated again and again until they fell asleep in a jumble of limbs.

\--

They didn’t mention anything in the morning. Not about her parents, about the sale of their home, or about what happened in the hotel room. Maybe one day they could talk about it, look back on how they were hurting - how they found each other. But it wouldn’t be today.

She sang along with the radio, although quietly, on the way back, and he sang too.


	20. Conversations with Lost People

His favorite coffee shop- which he'd found somewhat by accident while trying to locate a copy shop that he could use to make extra print-outs of several pages of his cram books- closed down when the owners located one of their children in a UN quarantine in Thailand. It was really the only reason that he was instead trolling the aisles of the convenience store down the block, trying to find something comparable to the cinnamon bread he liked so much.

He caught sight of the other man over a row of chips- he wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do. He recognized him (obviously, the dinner hadn't been that long ago, after all) but he didn't really know him- not anymore, anyway. He just sort of stood where he was awkwardly holding a melon bun, hoping something would strike him as the appropriate response in such a situation.

Turns out he didn't need to worry. Nino rounded the corner to give him a little wave and the raising of one eyebrow. "Didn't think I'd run into you here."

"Just looking for some food," Sho replied. "Cafe is closed."

"Mm," Nino said. He looked to the row of chip bags, and motioned to one. "That one's good."

Sho felt oddly compelled to take it, like maybe Nino would be mad if he didn't. He wasn't sure what to say- hi, I think we knew each other before I woke up in a Korean hospital with only flashes of what my life was like before that? I'm not stupid and I picked up that you were hinting at something during the dinner at Aiba's? Nothing seemed appropriate, especially not in a public place.

"You live around here?" he settled on instead, because it was neutral territory.

"Satoshi and I have an apartment," was the answer. "Didn't really want to end up here again, but there were some job openings, and well- had to do something, you know?"

Sho didn't, really. His family had flown back from the Embassy in Seoul to see him in the hospital, had gotten the house Sho couldn't remember cleaned up in a few days by knowing the right people.

"How's university?"

"Fine," Sho lied. He didn't want to talk about it, and he was hoping Nino wouldn't press the matter. But of course the other man did, plunging heedlessly into the entire conversation Sho had spent a week avoiding with his mother.

"Hard to go back? What'd they let you back in as, anyway? First year grad again?"

There wasn't really a classification for what Sho was. He was technically a graduate student- he had records and transcripts and grade reports to prove it, but he remembered nothing of his undergraduate education, and couldn't very well be taking graduate classes without the necessary knowledge. So he wasn't really anything; he was the scientific lab rat, the lucky survivor, the special guy who didn't know who he was.

"It's okay," he said with a shrug. "You know. Classes."

There was a stretch of silence between them, and Nino kicked a bit at the bottom row of boxes with the toe of his shoe. "See Jun much?"

"You keep doing that," Sho said, crossly.

"Doing what?"

Sho put the bag of chips back, chest tightening. "Saying things that have this obvious underlying meaning like I'm supposed to understand them. I don't. I mean, I get that you are implying something, but I don't know what it is."

"Keep thinking maybe you should remember something," Nino said.

"Well, I can't, alright?" Sho shouted. "I can't remember anything, and I don't know what it means, so why don't you just stop beating around the bush and get the balls to actually say it?"

Nino just looked at him, face expressionless (as far as Sho could tell), and Sho wasn't even that mad at him, though the words kept tumbling out with more force. He was mad at the fact that his mind was white and foggy, he was mad at the fact that everyone expected him to know their face and name, he was mad that the school wanted him to relearn years of education in a matter of months. He was just upset with everything that felt like it was bearing down at him while standing in the middle of a slightly less-than-clean convenience store picking out pre-packaged food.

He threw one arm out in an involuntary action and ended up knocking over boxes of cookies. They clattered to the ground in an angry thud that sounded like dominoes collapsing. And Sho just stared down at the pile like it was the cause of all his troubles.

"Okay," Nino said, and his hand was on Sho's elbow, bizarrely gentle. He bent down to pick up a few of the cartons and put them back on the shelf, and then made eye contact with the cashier, who Sho could only guess was perturbed. "Look, there's another coffee place next street over. Why don't I show it to you?"

\--

It was cold, it was wet, and Sho had never been more terrified in his life. The Lost were no longer behind them- at least they'd stopped being chased by them, and had managed to get in some much needed moments of rest. But Jun and Ohno were gone, and Aiba was even more upset, and Nino had just kind of clammed up and refused to talk about anything, giving only suggestions like "they'll probably head towards the location on the radio" and "Aiba, don't touch that stuff, it's probably diseased".

Sho's feet hurt. He didn't even know if they were going in the right direction, and he wasn't entirely sure that he trusted Nino's navigational skills.

"Can we stop?" he asked, almost gasping.

"No."

But Aiba was wheezing too. They were freezing- they had to at least get somewhere warm, even if they had to throw bookcases against the windows to do it. Sho hadn't heard anything tailing them for awhile, though he knew that was never a good indication of whether or not there was anything actually out there. "We need to rest. We can keep moving in the morning."

"I said no," Nino snapped.

"And I say you're not in charge," Sho shot back. He stopped walking. Nino turned to glance over his shoulder- he seemed prepared to go on until Aiba paused, too. Two against one was worse for him, and Nino wasn't stupid; he calculated the odds. He wouldn't survive long out there with just his Wii controller. "We stop here."

Nino laughed, spreading his arms wide from side to side. "Here? Right here? In the middle of the street?"

Sho didn't know where they were, or what village they were trudging through, but it didn't matter. He wasn't sure anything mattered anymore- Jun was gone. Jun was gone and his life was gone and Japan was gone, and he just really didn't care.

"We find a place to stay," Sho growled out between clenched teeth.

"Make yourself dinner if you want," Nino hissed, "but I'm not going down with you."

Aiba's hands were in the air, trembling. "Guys, please, just calm down-"

"Running us ragged into the ground isn't going to help our odds of surviving," Sho said.

And then Nino was in his face, one finger out so close Sho could have leaned forward to bite down hard around it, all sparking rage and bone-weary irritability colliding together. "You're just mad because your boyfriend isn't here to play knight in shining armor again!"

"Nino, please don't-"

"You know what? You're right!" Sho exclaimed, shoving Nino backwards just to get him out of his personal space. "You're right! I am mad that Jun's gone, because he's out there and I don't know if he's okay."

"I've been right the whole time!" Nino howled.

"So what?!" Sho cried. "So fucking what?! What good does it do to admit that you're right? What does it help to say yeah, you were right, we have a history? Nothing! It helps nothing, and it changes nothing, and I don't fucking care anymore!"

He was shaking with rage and had nowhere to channel it, so he bent down and picked up a rock, chucking it at Nino. He had terrible aim, and he hadn't even really meant to hit him anyway. The stone skipped across the cement and disappeared somewhere in the shadows cast by the moon overhead.

Nino glared daggers at him. "You could have just-"

"I could have what, admitted it?" Sho continued. "I could have told you all that he means everything to me, that he's all I think about? What good would that have done?"

Aiba was backing up, looking stricken and near tears. Sho felt a twinge in his chest for upsetting him- after all, Aiba was still grieving, but Nino was crossing lines left and right with no regard for boundaries, and Sho was sick of it. He was sick of all of it, right down to the blood splatters on his shoes.

"You're a hypocrite, Ninomiya," Sho growled. "You're a fucking hypocrite, and you're just like me."

For a very long time, no one said anything. In the distance there was a crash, but it sounded far off- far enough at least that it didn't seem to be moving in their direction, or have noticed their presence. It spurred Nino into action though; he moved to walk past Sho, behind him, towards one of the larger buildings they'd passed a few minutes ago.

"Let's go," he barked. "We keep going come morning."

They found an abandoned apartment that seemed clean. There weren't any bodies nearby, and Sho wasn't really keen on going out to find some to lay in the doorway. They shoved a dresser in front of the window and shut all the other doors in the place, locking the deadbolt and then double-checking that it was set in place.

Aiba grabbed blankets from the beds and closets and dumped them into the middle of the floor in a heap. They didn't really talk- Sho wasn't sure there was anything else to say. And as tired as he was, he couldn't find sleep while lying on the floor trying to find a comfortable position against the tiles, staring up at the ceiling.

After a little while, Aiba's gentle snoring started up. It was oddly comforting.

"You're right," came the whisper from Nino's huddled form, buried beneath several layers of down comforters he would no doubt roast in.

"About what?" Sho replied.

"I'm just like you."

The coils in Sho's stomach were slowly un-knotting, releasing the chokehold they'd had on his insides for so long. "We'll find Ohno."

"Will we?" Nino asked.

There was a part of Sho that simply couldn't believe they wouldn't- not finding Ohno meant not finding Jun, and he physically could not accept that.

"Yes," he said. "We will."

It was quiet, with just the sounds of Aiba's rhythmic breathing to lull them, and Nino twisted under the blankets a little. Sho could only see faint outlines of the man's profile as his night vision adjusted- there was a clock radio in the corner casting a reddish glow on everything.

Nino sighed a little bit, the sound swallowed by the blankets pulled up tight around him. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," Sho said. It felt so much better to say the words, because he really was. They were a rag-tag band of people just trying to get the hell out of the nightmare they'd found themselves in, and he didn't want to harbor grudges against anyone he was traveling with. He even liked Nino- in that don't want to get in front of him during a fight kind of way.

"Did you mean what you said about Jun?" Nino asked, suddenly hushed, like he was sharing some big secret. "Is he really everything?"

Sho swallowed hard. He felt oddly exposed. "Yes."

Nino was quiet again. Aiba rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep, slurring the words and wiping at his face with the back of one hand. When he quieted again, Nino said, "I think maybe you should tell him. When we find him again."

"Yeah," Sho said. "Maybe I will."

\--

The coffee at the shop Nino took him too wasn't bad. Sho just sat down at the table in the corner and stared at it, taking occasional sips. For a very long time, Nino didn't say anything- just kind of watched Sho with narrowed eyes that weren't necessarily judgmental, drumming his fingers on the tabletop in time with some of the music piped through the store.

"It must be hard," Nino said, finally, "not to know. About anything that happened in your life before now."

Sho kind of thought maybe it was a half-apology, like Nino was sorry for setting him off, though it wasn't really his fault. "No one will tell me anything."

"What do you want to know?" Nino asked. Sho wasn't sure what to inquire about first- some things, maybe he was better not knowing, when it all came down to it. Some things were beyond his control, beyond what he could do or change. He didn't want those. But others...

"Why do you keep asking about Jun?" he choked out. "Were we...?"

Nino eyed him, starting up the rhythmic tapping against the table again. "Is it going to freak you out?"

"I don't know," Sho laughed, all nervous, twitchy energy. "Maybe. Probably."

"Yeah," Nino said, and reached over to take Sho's coffee that he'd barely touched. Nino took a drink and made a face like he didn't care for it, but proceeded to take another sip anyway. "You were."

"How-"

"Well, not for the whole time I knew you," Nino amended. "I mean, I gather that something happened previous to our meeting up, but you were sort of pretending like it didn't. For awhile. But in the end..."

Sho didn't like the way Nino's voice trailed off there. His eyes had gone a bit glassy- and Sho was suddenly aware that Nino was very far away, off in a memory that Sho couldn't touch. For a few moments that felt agonizingly long, Sho just stared across the table at the other man, until Nino shook his head and bit his bottom lip, chuckling a bit in a decidedly mirthless manner. "Yeah. You were together."

It was bizarre being told about a relationship that Sho had no memories of. He wasn't even sure how he felt about it; the guy had been his roommate in the hospital, but it wasn't like they'd really talked. They didn't know what was going on, least of all why they were found together (and even that, they'd only been told about, since Sho couldn't remember being found, only waking up later). And they hadn't kept in contact. Sho hadn't even seen him again until Aiba's dinner.

Sho didn't know what to think about Jun.

"Oh," he said, feeling like he had to say something.

"We keep asking because, well..." Nino paused again. "Nevermind."

"What?"

But Nino was standing, moving his chair and pushing it back underneath the table, already shoving his hands down into his jacket pockets. "Nothing. You know, maybe it's better this way. Fresh start, or some shit."

It seemed impossible to have a fresh start without first knowing what the initial trial had been. Nino gave him a little salute and a small smile that seemed sincere. "Keep in touch, Sakurai."

When he left, Sho spent a long time staring at his coffee cup, until the latte inside had long since grown cold, and then he pulled out his phone. He had Jun's mobile number- he'd gotten it a few weeks ago and hadn't used it. He didn't know if he should. With all the things unsaid and all the mentions that Nino and Ohno had given him, maybe it meant something. Or maybe it didn't.

He was so unsure about everything, these days.

He pressed dial before he could double-think the decision. Jun picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hey," Sho said. His mouth had gone weirdly dry. "It's Sho. I- well, did you want to study together sometime?"


	21. Survivor's Guilt (Ohno/Nino)

When he gets back from the store and the coffee shop, the apartment is empty. He leaves the bags of snacks and pre-packaged meals on the counter and gets in the shower. When he’s alone, he can take as long as he wants. They say the water’s fine now, but Satoshi doesn’t trust it yet. He’s always in and out in less than three minutes. Lately, Nino’s stayed in for twenty minutes. Thirty. Neither of them have taken baths – right now, the tub serves as extra storage for some of the things Satoshi’s brought from his old house.

Nino’s always tried to convince himself that he’s not sentimental.

He’s always failed.

It had been hard to sit there and not tell Sakurai everything. Tell him about every damn glance Jun would give him in the first few days, how the two of them would stand so close until they noticed that someone was looking their way. How they did it and didn’t even know they were doing it.

And now the two of them are strangers.

He turns the hot tap up, enough for each drop on his skin to hurt, but he doesn’t flinch. It reminds him that he had to clean himself off with lukewarm bottled water for two months. Hot water’s a gift. Showering in general’s a gift. He leans forward, bracing himself on the tile that could probably use a good scrub down. The spray goes down the back of his head, burns its way down his spine, and he tries not to cry.

A day earlier, maybe they’d still know each other. He doesn’t know. He’s not a fucking doctor. They saved them, they got there in time for them to still be alive. But what kind of life had Nino given them by coming back as he promised? They weren’t the same, never would be the same people. They were bodies with Jun and Sho’s faces, but the minds, the souls inside were damaged.

Sho had been a pain in the ass, nagging, wanting things to go his way because he liked being in control. Now he was wandering around the aisles of convenience stores, face blank. Jun had been kind of internalizing and shy before, but there’d been so much behind his eyes. He’d been passionate and driven and now he was quiet, almost blending into the wallpaper at Aiba’s place, looking for a place to belong.

Maybe he should have let them die. Maybe it would have been preferable to this half-life they’d been given back. He’d wanted to save someone – he’d played too many fucking games, saved the world too many times. If he hadn’t been so insistent this time, Sho and Jun could have gone out as Sho and Jun. Now they had ID cards naming them as such, but they could never get back. Because Nino had promised.

He turns the shower off when he hears Satoshi come in. For all that Nino liked to play the hero, he hadn’t gone in first. Hadn’t gone to check and see what was left inside that jail cell until Satoshi came out looking like he wanted to be sick. So he’d gone in – they were his responsibility. He was there to save them, he was there with the cure. The blood and the black where skin had been. They’d all huddled together every night, and when Nino had left them they’d been that way. There’d been blood on the bars, hair stuck to it and Jun in a heap on the ground beneath it. Sho as far away as possible, curled up like a pill bug. Then the med evac teams had swooped in and whisked them off to Korea, they’d all been quarantined and questioned, and Nino didn’t have the heart to visit them like Aiba did.

Because the Sho and Jun who came out of that cell weren’t Sho and Jun, and it’s all his fault.

Satoshi finds him on the bathroom floor, half-covered with a towel and water dripping down from his brow. “I’m never going to forget you,” is what he says to Nino now, gripping Nino’s slick fingers with his dry ones. Not “I’m here” or “I love you” but that he won’t forget. They might break up someday, go their separate ways, but they won’t forget.

It means more, he realizes, to be remembered than to be loved.


	22. Expo

The alarm goes off at 5:30.

It’s still dark out and he blinks, stunned out of a dream that’s already slipping away. He kicks the covers off and the tile is cool when his feet touch it. The roommate must have had a rug - his parents had come to claim his things before Jun had moved back into the dorm.

The other bed sits without sheets. The other closet and dresser empty. They don’t have enough students to fill all the double rooms. He finds himself staring at the other bed every morning, wondering who was there. If they got along, if they didn’t get along.

He gets up, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste.

\--

His parents are watching television downstairs, and he can hear it even with the door closed. The student affairs office gave him sample questions, and he used his computer to check other websites for more. He’s at a disadvantage - his degree might be the same on paper as others once he graduates, but it’s taking longer. Big companies might exclude him without knowing the full story.

Everyone will have a blip on their transcripts and resumes, his mother assures him. Some blips are larger than others.

The career expo is two weeks away - he doesn’t even know what he wants to do. He’s still a year from graduating. It’s to see what’s out there, his father says.

His parents are kind, patient. Jun knows they say thankful prayers every night that he’s alive. Jun doesn’t have the heart to tell them he’s not the same son they had several months ago. He scans the paper and takes a breath.

_How do you handle stress and pressure?_

\--

He brushes his teeth four times. The second time because he didn’t think he’d used enough toothpaste. The third because he didn’t realize he was still standing there, staring at the mirror. The fourth just because it keeps him away from the suit and tie hanging in the closet.

Nobody else comes into the washroom while he’s there. Some in the dorm have probably just gotten back from a night out.

“My name is Matsumoto Jun. I’ll be graduating with my degree in accounting from the University of Central Tokyo next fall,” he tells his reflection in between spitting toothpaste into the sink. He runs a hand through his hair and frowns. “My name is Matsumoto Jun. Next fall, I will graduate with my degree in accounting from the University of Central Tokyo.”

\--

Aiba thinks it’s weird that he jogs on the treadmill at the university gym. Apparently, the three of them, him, Aiba and Sho - they’d spent a month living there during the incident. Jun doesn’t remember, so he doesn’t think it’s all that weird.

He’s got classical music playing, something that’s just piano as he runs, sneakers slapping against the treadmill. The list of questions have been transferred to a notecard that he’s got sitting over the computer read-out. He can see the faint red LCD timer shining through the paper.

He whispers the answers he’s preparing as he runs, in between breaths. _What are you passionate about?_

This is one he’s been trying to practice. His computer at home is full of pictures. “I like photography,” he says, closing his eyes and thinking about the folders of digital photos. “I like to walk around my neighborhood, capturing things that seem out of the ordinary if you just look.” There’s the album from the beach, a guy his mother says is named Shun. Was named Shun. “I’ve been surfing for several years. It really gets my blood going.”

The track ends on his iPod, and the new one doesn’t start up instantly, leaving him with the sound of his muttering and his running and his breathing. “I’m very interested in photography. Capturing my neighborhood and the people there really interests...no, no, you already said interest. Damn it, damn it.”

\--

Turning on the light in the room makes it feel closer to morning than it did when he left. He needs to shower. When he comes back from that, the sun is finally starting to peek out from behind the clouds. The campus is still deserted - the expo is at some convention center in Chiba so he has to be up early. Aiba wants him to stop by for food when it’s over. Aiba isn’t coming back to school.

He can’t avoid it. He catches it in the mirror. He’s got his contacts in already, so it’s all too plainly visible. The doctors say they’ll always be there. The scars are on his legs - they took the skin there for his other leg, for his right forearm. It’s still kind of red, a little brown, still kind of raised up from the surface. Still noticeable. They itch sometimes. He’s got cream for it. His mind’s empty, but his body is proof that he was one of the people who got infected.

In the hospital, Sho was always covered up. Jun doesn’t know if he had skin grafts like him or if he has scars left behind. His mother says they have surgery that can reduce the scarring, take out some of the scar tissue. But it hasn’t been long enough. Jun doesn’t mind - he’s not ready to go back to a hospital any time soon.

He pulls on the dark slacks, hiding the scars on his legs. He pulls on a clean white dress shirt, making sure the little buttons at his wrists go through the holes, hiding the scars on his arm. Next is the tie. “Mr. Matsumoto, if you could,” he asks himself in the mirror as his fingers work on his tie, “describe a time when you had a difficult assignment or obstacle in your life and how you overcame it.”

\--

It’s a quiet study room in the library, and he’s glad he doesn’t just have to talk to himself. “I’m probably not your best resource. I’ve never been on a job interview or a career thing.” Sho frowns and shakes his head. “Well, if I have, I don’t remember.”

Jun waves his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

Sho looks rather professional, sitting up straight as he reads off the question to him. He must have always had decent posture. His mind might not remember, but his body does. “What are your goals for the next five years?”

He tries to look Sho in the eye. Eye contact is important, everything he’s read has said as much. “The next five years.” Repeat the question back? Something had said that, right? Why was this so much harder when there was someone on the other side of the table?

“I’d hate to get this question,” Sho admits. This is why he asked Sho for help. He understands. Aiba can’t. His parents can’t. He doesn’t really know Sakurai that well, but he did. That has to count for something.

He tries not to think of that notebook Aiba brought him.

“Well,” he starts. He probably shouldn’t start with that. He breaks eye contact, focuses on a little red piece of string that’s attached itself to the collar of Sho’s shirt. Maybe he should tell him it’s there. “In five years, I...” Maybe he shouldn’t. “In five years, I’d like to be in charge of a few accounts. I’d like to be the go-to person in my department. I think a position of responsibility, where I could prove myself...I think in five years I’d like to...to advance and...be someone that can show...” He looks up, and Sho’s eyes are sympathetic.

“I can ask you another one.”

He should know this one. He should know this. It’s something he could just make up - these places won’t know that he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s doing next week, let alone five years from now.

“Jun?”

He’s been tapping his foot under the table and drumming his fingers and Sho pities him. “I’m sorry. Let me try again.”

Sho nods, and Jun tries not to think about that notebook. “What are your goals for the next five years?”

\--

He probably looks like a crazy person, standing on the train platform with his briefcase (borrowed from his father) and whispering to himself. He’s got the notecard of questions in his jacket pocket. He’s already memorized the order.

_Why do you want this job?_

There’s an announcement that the local will arrive on track 2 shortly - the rapid is already pulling up.

“I feel,” he says, death grip on the handle of the briefcase, “that I could really make a difference here. I bring a strong work ethic and drive to all of my tasks.”

Did you know I’m finishing my degree, even after being infected with the disease? You know, that disease? Oh yes, I’m cured.

He sits down in the car, keeping the briefcase at his feet. “I think I’m a good match for the company. The company’s mission is to...is to support the...is to support...”

Did you know that some weekends I go home and see my parents? Two strangers? And then my sister comes home, and I had to write her name in my old planner so I wouldn’t forget her name? But I forgot it anyway?

The train doors close.

_Why do you want this job?_

\--

He gets ready for bed, setting the alarm for 5:30 AM. Why the fuck is he going to a career fair? He doesn’t know what he wants to do. He doesn’t even know if he wants to be in school.

The other bed is empty, and he shuts off the light.

He stares up at the ceiling. “What is your greatest weakness?” he asks himself in the dark.

He laughs before answering. “I don’t know...I don’t know. That’s it right there. I don’t know.”

\--

It takes him forty-five minutes walking around the expo before he introduces himself at one of the booths. It’s one that’s off from what seems to be the main drag. The woman looks bored - nobody else is around. It’s a large bank.

He introduces himself and hands over a copy of his resume. “I will be graduating next year...next fall with a degree in accounting.”

She nods, scanning his resume with an indifferent expression. “We’re always hiring in accounting.”

He waits patiently as she reads it over. The notecard’s burning a hole in his pocket, and he’s got answers in his head that he’s memorized so he sounds like the others would, the others who still have their brains in order the way they always had been.

When she looks up, she doesn’t smile. “Why are you here today, Mr. Matsumoto?”

This isn’t on the notecard. This isn’t one he practiced. His arm and his legs are covered up by a suit he never remembers going shopping for, he’s carrying a briefcase belonging to a man he doesn’t really know, and the only mention of Sakurai in his entire planner is covered in blood stains. _I love Sho._

The woman’s waiting for him. He steps back. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, bowing low in apology before loosening his tie and heading for the exit.


	23. What's Real

Aiba saw the ad on the train. The ad led to a website and the website to an address in a non-descript small office building three minutes from Shinagawa Station. It’s summer break, and he’s mostly been spending it working on his dissertation.

Changing his initial thesis to the economic impact of the virus on Japanese universities is almost a godsend – it’s a topic he doesn’t have to think about too hard. The evidence is all around him – in visits to colleges, private and public alike in Tokyo. People are surprisingly frank with their opinions on how their educational experience has changed, what the colleges can and cannot provide them. He’s been so successful in his research that he’s got free time.

He sees Jun in the building’s lobby. Aiba must have convinced him this was a good idea too. They’ve had coffee a few times, he helped Jun with some job fair a few months back. Sho thinks he’s a pretty good guy, a good friend. But every time they’re alone, without Aiba or Nino to drop hints, it’s kind of strange. They were together, and it’s weird. Are they just supposed to pick it back up? It’s not like learning to ride a bike over again.

“This isn’t going to be helpful,” Jun says as he walks up. “I can already tell.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

They take the elevator up. The sign on the door at the end of the hall says “Survivor Group,” which makes Sho roll his eyes. They haven’t overcome cancer, they haven’t been in a war zone. Well, he doesn’t remember it. Maybe it was like a war zone. He just doesn’t like the name of it – doesn’t like being labeled for what happened. He just wants to be Sho. It’s just a matter of working hard to get back there.

Sitting in a circle and talking about his feelings isn’t really something he wanted to do today. What were they going to say? Jun looks just as uncomfortable, but Aiba thinks this might help, and Sho likes Aiba enough to not want to hurt his feelings. It’s pretty clear that Jun’s here for the same reason.

There’s coffee and some onigiri out. He and Jun help themselves and join the circle. Sho has to look away from the woman with no leg – the virus had taken it from her. The doctors had said that Sho was healthy – it hadn’t affected his body as quickly as others. He’s just got the scar on his thigh, the matching one on the other leg where they took his skin.

It’s hot and humid, but Jun’s got on long sleeves. Sho imagines he’s got something to cover up on his arms. The man leading the session is foreign, originally from Canada, or so his papers tell him. He came over as a teacher – the disease hasn’t affected his speech. Even though he’s not a native speaker of Japanese, he’s still pretty good. “Relearning kanji’s still tough though,” the man admits, trying to get a chuckle out of the rather reserved group of twelve or so.

They go around and say their names, their occupations. There’s a student from Waseda, but otherwise most are adults. A couple housewives, a couple businessmen. The woman with the leg missing was a preschool teacher. Nobody wants to start. Nobody wants to be here.

He makes eye contact with the Canadian guy accidentally. “Sakurai, right? Why don’t you tell us some things about yourself?”

Sho can feel his face grow hot. “Well, as I said I…I’m a graduate student in economics. I’m working on my dissertation right now. Kind of undecided about my plans after I get my degree.”

The girl from Waseda nods. “I was going to go to med school. I don’t know if I want to now.”

It feels slightly good to hear that, but at the same time disappointing. She’s giving up, he might give up. He wonders if Jun’s given up. The group leader seems sympathetic – Sho isn’t sure he wants anyone’s sympathy. “I think it’s great that you’re still continuing your studies. I know a lot of students, many not affected the way we’ve been, have quit.”

Not affected the way we’ve been, he says. He means the ones whose brains aren’t scrambled. Half-empty, missing most of what made them who they were before. The businessmen feel like a burden on their co-workers – they can’t keep up, they don’t remember their colleagues, let alone the people they do business with. They’re worried about losing their jobs, being unable to support their families.

One of the housewives cries. “I have a baby,” she admits, not looking up from the spot on the floor that she’s concentrating on. “I don’t remember carrying him. I don’t remember giving birth to him or holding him in my arms for the first time. I love him because he’s my child, and I’m supposed to, aren’t I? But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right at all.”

Sho can hear Jun sniff beside him – whether it’s from the woman’s story or from the air conditioning inside he can’t tell. He wonders what he would have done – Nino said he and Jun had been together. Would he have said something? Would he have reached for Jun’s hand? Would he have stayed cold in front of others, comforting him later? Sho just sits still, wishing for the session to be over.

When people stop sharing their sad stories, the leader clears his throat. “Why don’t we take a break?”

Jun invites him out for a cigarette. He agrees. They get outside, and Jun says he doesn’t have any cigarettes. “I’m not going back in,” he says, and now that they’re outside and Jun’s looking around the street, Sho can see that his eyes are red.

“I’m not going either,” Sho decides. Sitting around in a circle – it was all too depressing. Nobody had any answers. Nobody had any cure-all. That part of his mind was gone.

He’s lucky he can form new memories – some survivors can’t. They’d never be able to function in society. But they’d been cured from the disease. Wasn’t it enough of a miracle to still be breathing? Sho wasn’t too sure.

All that’s waiting back at home is his laptop screen. It’s only 6:00 – they’re both probably hungry, but neither of them asks about food. That’s a date, isn’t it? He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be in love with Jun or be his friend or not talk to him at all because it just reminds him that he’s lost so much of himself.

He doesn’t even know if he’s attracted to Jun. Okay, he admits, he’s attracted. But he doesn’t know if it’s real. It’s like the woman with the baby – it’s her child. You’re supposed to love your child – but how can you if you don’t remember them? He and Jun were together – he might have loved Jun, but how can he love him now if he doesn’t remember what it felt like to be in love with him?

What Sho is definitely sure about is that he’s the type of person who thinks a lot and doesn’t act. Even a gap in his memory isn’t enough to hide that. He knows that Jun is good-looking, that Jun is nice and that he doesn’t smile as much as he should. But at the same time, he doesn’t remember what it’s like to hold Jun’s hand or…anything else. The “anything else” tends to keep Sho up late at night.

He doesn’t know if Jun wonders about it. It’s not something you can come right out and ask someone. “Do you think we ever…?”

When he’s lying in bed sometimes, half asleep, he wonders what brought them together. He tries to imagine himself bringing Jun close, but he just can’t go that last step. Because the guy’s practically a stranger.

They’ve been walking in the direction of the train station. He’s going home, Jun’s at home with his parents during break – they live in Toshima. Neither of them have been able to ask to continue their time together. When Jun digs in his pocket for his rail card, he drops a receipt.

He bends down to pick it up at the same time, and their fingers brush – Sho’s bare ones against the strange skull ring Jun has on. It’s like touching a hot plate – that’s what his body’s saying as they both pull back. But is it real? Is it just his mind telling him that he should want this contact? Is he trying to convince himself that there’s more here than there is?

“Sorry,” he says, getting back to his feet. They both go through the turnstile, and god, he doesn’t know anything. He wasn’t taking Aiba’s suggestions again – he’s more confused than ever as he stands beside Jun on the platform, staring at the rails, at anything that’s not Jun’s fingers until the train arrives.


	24. Full Circle (Aiba/Becky)

It was harder than he'd thought it was going to be to get everything back up and running. Truth be told, sometimes he wasn't sure if it was because of the general economic climate of Japan or because everything in his parents' restaurant still felt like he was fighting against the current pushing him in the opposite direction. He still hadn't gone back into the downstairs bedroom.

He thought about boarding it up, because he never wanted to step foot inside it again after clearing the furniture out.

Despite everything, they started getting a few customers when they opened back up. Becky was good out front- she could handle the seating and tables herself still, with the low numbers. In the kitchen, Aiba felt like he was in a bubble, some kind of alternate reality, and sometimes it was nice to be like that. He could lose himself over the stove, in the pots and pans, and everything wouldn't be so stagnant.

\--

Becky was sitting in the living room one night, after he finished scrubbing down the rice cooker, staring at the coffee table and the papers splayed across the surface.

"What is it?" he asked. From the expression on her face, he couldn't tell- and he didn't like that.

"My parents' life insurance policies," she said, picking up one of the papers and handing it to him without shifting her gaze.

Aiba sat across from her, in one of the chairs, scanning over the paper. Most of it was legal jargon, and he'd never been particularly good with that, but the bottom half was remarkably less littered with characters. There were numbers there.

"Oh my god," he breathed. It was more money than he knew what to do with. He was sure that she wouldn't get it all at once, but even in increments, it was substantial. They sat in silence for several long moments, and Becky still wasn't looking at him. He was afraid she was angry- she hadn't said much all day.

He set the paper back down on the table and bit his lip. "What are you thinking about?"

Becky just shook her head, chin resting in her palm. Her eyes looked very far away, focused on something far beyond the paint of the walls.

"What do you want to do with it?" he tried instead.

"I don't know," was all she said.

\--

He wanted to do something for her, to bring a smile back to her face. She'd been doing so much better lately, and it seemed like the insurance paperwork had just brought it all down again- like reality falling in pieces from the sky. They had the restaurant closed for a few days, and he spent them in the kitchen, trying to come up with something new to present to her at dinner. Something she'd like- maybe even something foreign.

It ended up being a cake. He'd found a recipe for cheesecake in one of his mother's cookbooks, handwritten along the side. He trusted the bits he found that she'd written out herself.

He put some sliced fruit on the top and set it in the middle of the table along with two tapers he'd discovered in some dusty drawers while cleaning. And then he went to find her, pulling her towards the kitchen and stopping just before the doorway.

He covered her eyes with his hands. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," she said. Aiba led her inside and removed his hands, gesturing happily towards the cake on the table with a grin.

"It's cake night!" he said. For a long moment, she didn't react at all. He saw her eyes sweep over the table, the candles, the cheesecake in the middle, and then nothing happened. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't what he saw. She just stood there, breathing hard.

"Hey," he tried, fingers gently curving over her shoulder. "Becky? You okay?"

There was a moment when her eyes met his, and he could see that they were filled with tears- then she turned and fled the kitchen without a word, leaving him standing alone to stare at the flickering candlelight.

He stood for several moments, and then pulled a chair out, nearly falling into it. He was convinced that she was going to leave him- he felt so distant from her the past few days, had tried so hard to make it work. He just sat and glared at the candles and didn't bother to wipe away his own tears that were hot against his cheeks when they rolled down.

Aiba didn't know what he would do without her. She was all he had left.

After minutes that felt like hours, he heard her footsteps in the doorway again. For a second, he couldn't even bring himself to look up; he was terrified that she had already packed her things, and was holding a duffel with all the shattered pieces of his life that she would be taking with her when she left.

When he finally moved his head, he saw she wasn't holding a bag. She was holding something much smaller that fit in her hand.

She held it out to him.

He thought it was a pencil at first. It was a pregnancy test.

She looked like she was going to cry when he threw his arms around her shoulders, heart thumping wildly in his chest. The test landed on the table and clinked against the wood a few times, and Aiba just tightened his embrace, pulling her as close as he possibly could. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because," she sobbed, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt and holding on like a lifeline, "I don't know what to do."

Aiba pulled back only enough to kiss her cheek, her nose, moving to cup her face in his hands and catch her lips. She tasted like the salt from her tears. Aiba didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry- and he was pretty sure that he was doing both. There was a bubble in his chest that was pressing against his lungs, and she wasn't going to leave, she wasn't going to leave-

"I made you cake," he laughed, half-muffled against her mouth. "I thought you were mad at me."

"I was afraid you'd be angry," she whispered.

Aiba just kissed her again and again. "I'm not angry, I'm happy."

She pulled away and started wiping at her face with the back of her hands to clear the tears still clinging to her skin, but even through it, she was smiling- really smiling, the first smile Aiba had seen on her face in awhile. It made him laugh all over again, nervous energy overflowing everywhere.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For making you think I was mad. I can't believe you made me cake."

"Cheesecake," Aiba said, proudly.

Becky sat down and looked at the cake, eyes shimmering in the dancing candlelight. "I don't know what to say," she sniffed.

"You can start by telling me how awesome it tastes," Aiba said, as he cut her a slice and made sure there were extra slices of fruit on the top when he pushed it across the table in front of her.

It was delicious, but Aiba wasn't entirely sure it was just because of the recipe.

\--

"Masaki?" she whispered, when the lights were out and there was only moonlight streaming in through the bedroom window, making tendrils of shadows on the opposite wall. "Are you sleeping?"

"No," he replied, though he had been, at least a little bit. She turned over to curl up against him, settling her chin into the groove of his shoulder. Aiba curved his arm around her form, warm and soft, letting his hand rest on her hip.

She was quiet for a moment, fingers tracing tiny circles across his chest. "I'm worried."

"About the baby?" he asked.

"About everything," she clarified. "I just- is this a good time? The right time?"

Aiba thought about Nino and Ohno, working what jobs they could and living together in an apartment. He thought about Jun and Sho, memory-less and floundering, trying to figure out who they were in a world that had already lost so much. He thought the country struggling to rebuild what had been broken, of the lives that were missing.

He thought about school, the screams, the safety center- of the nights he'd spent wishing he knew everything and the nights he wished he'd never been told.

He thought of his parents buried in the backyard.

"I think it's our time," he said.

Becky was quiet for a long while, but her fingers were still moving across Aiba's skin, and he didn't push her. The hand he had resting on her waist dipped a bit, to skim her stomach. When she shifted, he pressed his palm against her belly, imagining their future curled up inside. He wondered if it would have her eyes.

Then she pulled away a little, smiling. "I know what I want to do with the insurance money."

\--

He choked a little on the dust when he opened the door, but it settled quicker than he thought it would. The floors needed to be swept and the walls would have to be stripped before they could re-paint, but the sunlight streaming in made it feel warm, and the sheer curtains would match whatever color they put up.

Becky walked in immediately, but Aiba hung back, taking a moment. There were a thousand things flying through his head, a million thoughts he couldn't hope to decipher, but more than anything else, he had a feeling maybe this was what they would have wanted, in the end.

And standing in the middle of the room, Becky turned to him, grinning and radiant.


	25. Statistics (Sho/Jun)

He was starting to lose track of the days. Sho spent more and more time sitting on the floor of his small room in the graduate dorm, comparing notes and studies he would reference. All he had was his dissertation. Somehow, he’d had his share of friends before everything had gone crazy, but few of them made any attempt to reconnect with him. The ones that did - well, apparently the new Sakurai wasn’t as interesting as the old one had been because they stopped calling too.

He could count on Aiba to check in, to send him funny emails to distract him for a few minutes while he waited to print out another draft so he could go over it with a pen. Reading on the computer screen got tiresome, and though Sho didn’t know the type of student he’d been before, the student he was now liked having something tangible to edit - sentences he could strike through and reword until it fit what he wanted to convey.

Nino called him a hermit, but he said it with such affection and understanding that Sho didn’t let it piss him off as much as he wanted it to.

When he went home for weekends, his mother would hint that he needed to get a haircut, that he was starting to look like a starving artist who needed a shave and a bath. He had to admit that the person he saw in the mirror every day was starting to change. When he’d gotten home from the hospital, wound on his thigh still wrapped and healing, he’d felt like a little boy. His mother had cut his hair herself the time they’d been able to visit in Korea.

The fact of the matter was that Sho didn’t much care what he looked like. It wasn’t his scruffier face or his longer, messier hair that kept people away from him. It was the person who had taken up residence in Sho’s head, the bit of him that remained - the part that hadn’t been stripped away for good. What remained wasn’t the person people wanted to be friends with, so he just stopped caring.

What mattered was the piece of paper he’d get that said he had completed his course of study. Once that was done, he could reassess. He could decide what his place was in this world, where he belonged. If his father had any say, Sho would be in a suit and tie and moving up the bureaucratic ladder, a potential replacement. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if his old self had been perfectly content with letting his father dictate the entire direction of his life.

He had a decent draft now to pass on to his thesis committee, so he could go home and play nice with the family. He dropped the print-out in his advisor’s mailbox with a politely composed thank you before catching the train.

For all that Sho had lost, it seemed that the decorum for living in the Sakurai home had become so ingrained in him that he knew he had to become someone else just to cross the threshold. Dinner was promptly served at x time, followed by a family discussion. He was expected to care deeply about his father’s work and efforts.

His mother made her comments about his appearance, and his little brother said he looked like “the guy in the park who sleeps on the benches.” He just shoved another mouthful of rice in and chewed while his father requested they change the subject to something less juvenile.

But Sho being a slob remained the focus of the meal. “With your defense coming up and your pending graduation, it’s probably about time you started thinking about your future,” his father said, as if Sho was nothing more interesting than a piece of legislation crossing his desk.

“I’ve put in applications.”

His father and mother exchanged a look. Shit, this did not bode well.

“We were thinking more about your...future. In the family sense,” his mother said gently.

He nodded. Had this conversation happened before? Were they just rehashing it for the sake of his brain having disappeared? “You want me to get married.”

His mother looked ready to shake her head, but his father took a sip of wine and spoke first. “You’re still young, but it doesn’t hurt to look into a matchmaking opportunity or two. Think of the impact it could have.”

Wait. Impact? He set his chopsticks down on the rest, saw that his mother and father were having an argument across the table without using words. “What impact would me getting married have?”

He watched his mother carefully, and though he didn’t remember much about her, he’d relearned enough these past months. She was opposed to the idea, fervently. But his father seemed to have the final say. “It would show that Japan is getting back on track. You’ve seen the statistics, Sho, and they are devastating. I think you could influence a lot of people in your generation by looking to start afresh, start anew.” His father took another sip from his glass. “Just an option on the table.”

He was getting it now. “Just a publicity stunt. Look at Sakurai’s boy,” Sho spat bitterly. “You think just because most of me’s gone that the brain I have left can’t see through your crap?”

“Sho,” his mother warned.

He tossed his napkin on the table, fuming. Would the old Sho have behaved similarly? “I know it’s an election year next year! I’m not...I’m not going to be some poster child for the brand new Japan!”

His father said nothing as he stormed out, but his mother found him upstairs, shoving clothes into his backpack. He didn’t know where the fuck he was going, but he wasn’t staying here. Get married, Sho. Clean yourself up and find a bride to impregnate so people will think everything’s a-ok - hey look! Even that kid who lost his mind is helping out! Vote Sakurai!

He wanted to be sick.

“Sho, he’s under a lot of pressure. The whole government’s still trying to right itself,” his mother reminded him. And it was true. Why hadn’t the government done more to protect them? Why hadn’t the government done more to help them? Twenty million people, gone - how would they recover?

His skin was hot, and he wanted to hit something, punch a wall, anything to not be under his father’s roof, just for this one night. “I’m not going to be a campaign gimmick. I’m not going to be a photo op.”

“He’s not asking you to be.”

He zipped the bag up and slung it over his shoulder. “He is, Mom. Don’t defend what he’s doing. If he doesn’t use me, he’ll use my sister. Oh wait, she didn’t get infected - might lose some of the swing voters who want a real uplifting story to believe in.”

“Sho, where are you going to go?”

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. I don’t know, just...would you let me leave? Please. I’ll go back to campus. I just cannot be here to listen to this when there are revisions I could be doing.”

That was a lie - he couldn’t do shit until he heard back from his advisor, but his mother probably knew that as she stood aside and allowed him to pass.

\--

He was exhausted when he got back to campus - one of the trains had been stopped by “something on the line.” Sadly enough, “something on the line” was the code for suicide these days, which were increasing in number even as the country was “officially” moving on from the infection and aftermath. An interesting statistic, one Sho morbidly kept posted on the tackboard in his dorm room, was that nearly one in four suicides were people who had been infected at some point.

An interesting statistic indeed.

He didn’t stop at his dorm room. He wasn’t thinking clearly, but all he knew was that he didn’t need to be in that room, sitting on the floor surrounded by books and notes, not tonight. He couldn’t go to Chiba, he couldn’t go to Nino. He didn’t have any friends that would understand or even give a shit. Jun simply nodded when he opened his door to let Sho in.

“I’m sorry,” he said first, seeing the open books covering Jun’s desk.

“It’s fine.”

He ran a hand through his hair, nearly getting stuck in the knots and tangles that increased with every day it continued without a cut. “I just...didn’t want to be...”

Alone was the word that formed on his tongue then, but he couldn’t say it. Probably didn’t need to say it.

“My father,” he continued instead. “My own father, who only cares what his constituency thinks of him, has decided it’s a great idea to marry me off. It’s a very Showa era idea, right? Let’s go back to our traditional values, remember what made Japan great. Hey, if this kid who had to relearn the kanji for his own name can get married and have babies, then surely we all should! Let’s get that birth rate up!”

He was pacing, still wearing his backpack and the straps were digging into his shoulders after his long time standing in the train car.

“I’m not even a person to him,” he choked out, feeling tears form in his eyes in his anger. “I’m a potential success story. If only I’d cut my hair and get a nice job pushing paper around a desk.”

Aiba could try, but he wouldn’t understand. Nino, Ohno, his parents, his professors, his absent friends - they wouldn’t understand. But Jun, standing there watching him pace, Jun got it. Jun wasn’t a person either - he was a statistic, just like Sho.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling the hot tears falling, and he didn’t even care. “Who are we? Who are we, Jun? They had to tell us our birthdays, our favorite foods, favorite sports.” He pointed at his head, hitting himself with his first two fingers repeatedly, enjoying the slight bursts of pain. “They had to tell us because wherever that shit was hiding has disappeared! It’s gone. Yeah, it’s gone, and we’ll never get it back. We can’t get it back, and they want us to be happy? They want us to move on?”

He stopped pacing, staring across the dorm room at the only person who understood.

“It’s impossible. It’s a joke. Who the fuck was I? Who the fuck am I?”

Matsumoto didn’t talk.

“Jun, who are we?”

Instead, he moved, swifter than Sho could process. Jun’s hands were firm and steady as he reached for him, fingers cupping his face as he leaned in and brought their mouths together. He closed his mind and went along, feeling the tension in his body start to dissipate as Jun moved along his lower lip, pressing gentle, reassuring kisses to the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t know who we are either,” Jun whispered in between breaths, and Sho broke down fully. He sank to his knees, and Jun followed, lips resting against Sho’s temple. “Sho, I have no idea who we are.”


	26. Blips and Pauses (Sho/Jun)

The university issued him examinations over the cram-books he'd been studying from. Jun really didn't feel mad about it- he didn't feel anything, really, because he wasn't sure what else they should have been doing, and it seemed like they didn't really know, either. The first test was hard, and the second test was even harder, and he was growing increasingly frustrated with exactly how much he had lost; it was difficult to re-learn in so short a time.

Around him, Tokyo was starting to sprout again.

He didn't follow much of what was going on. After the disastrous attempt at the survivor group that he and Sho had gone to, he didn't much feel like keeping tabs on it. But he had heard that close to 40% of the city was habitable again. The government had put a lot into cleaning it up, and they were nearing halfway complete. People were moving back, putting down roots again, trying to pick up their lives.

Sometimes it hurt that Jun didn't know enough of his life to pick anything back up, other than the shattered pieces at his feet.

He took to studying in the library, only because his mother had called and said he should be out mingling with other people more. But you need to relearn these things, she had said, and he heard the tears she was trying to disguise over the phone. _You have to get back into society, don't you want to be around other people?_

No, the truth was that Jun really didn't. But it was necessary, and he was already finding it difficult enough. So he studied in public places rather than his dorm room, just to feel awkward enough to report back home.

Despite it all, with his iPod blaring through his headphones, there was a tap on his shoulder while he was bent over his statistics book. He pulled the buds out of his ears, looking up.

"Sorry," Mao said. She looked like she genuinely meant it. "If you're busy, I can go."

"No," he said, pausing the song. "No, it's okay."

She slid into the seat next to him, eyes shimmering in the somewhat yellow library lights overhead. "I just didn't know if you were- doing okay. You know."

He didn't, and that was the whole problem, wasn't it?

"Yeah," he said, forcing up as much of a fake smile as he could muster. He was too frazzled from studying and obligations and fighting with his own emotions to do much else- but none of that was her fault, and he felt bad taking it out on her. "I'm fine. Thanks."

She looked down at her fingernails, almost awkward. Shy. Their last encounter had been strange, and it was clear she was still kind of reeling from it. "I just- I don't know. Anything. Not about what it's like or anything else. But I wish I could help."

"I know," he said.

"I really missed you," she told him, and her eyes were shimmering again, from something other than the lighting.

Jun shut his textbook. He had lost his groove; it wasn't entirely her fault, either. He hadn't been feeling it all night. His brain was weary and overloaded from strain, trying to recall everything he'd been shoving in it the last few months. He just wanted a break from all of it.

"I'm sorry," Mao said, and she wiped at her face with the back of her hand. "It's just that I know there's nothing I can do."

Jun awkwardly looked at his hands in his lap, fingers curling a little.

"Anyway," she said, rising from the seat, "I wanted to let you know that they are doing a special program tonight. On television- about all of it, the disease, the survivors, all of it. I thought you might want to watch it. It's on at 8."

She left, and Jun sat at the table for a very long time, thinking about it.

\--

He ended up going back to his room and staring at the television set. Part of him wanted to turn it on- and part of him felt like he was expected to. It was something he couldn't remember, a part of his life, whatever that had been, that he couldn't recall. And as much as people kept trying to get him to drudge up the memories, to reconcile with what had happened- Jun wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to.

There was a knock on the door, startling him from his reverie. He opened it to find Sho standing on the other side, an unreadable expression on his face. "Sorry. I know I didn't call or anything."

Jun opened the door wider. "Did you hear about the special?"

Sho gave him a nod and stepped in, bringing a wave of cool air with him. He shrugged off his jacket. Jun didn't ask why he was there; he already knew. Neither of them knew where they fit in anymore, and there was something on the news that was going to highlight all of it. What better place to run to than the only other person who understood how it felt?

There was a bubble in Jun's chest. He was glad that Sho was there.

The other man sat down on Jun's futon and just kind of stared at the TV in the same fashion that Jun had been. Sho looked lost, lost in his own thoughts and the world at large around them. Jun crossed in front of him and took the space on his other side.

It was loud when he clicked the power to on. The program was just starting, saying something about the catastrophic numbers, and the UN's attempts to keep everything contained, and the hell that had broken loose once the safety centers failed. None of it meant anything to Jun, and from the blank look on Sho's face, he wasn't alone.

"-when the dam broke, the results were horrific. Thousands upon thousands were infected from water that authorities had not realized was carrying pathogens inside it, and with delayed symptoms, it is estimated that another hundred thousand were infected before the cause was pinpointed."

A shiver ran down Jun's spine. The camera was panning over a building in tatters- it had been a safety center, the narration said. And Jun knew, knew from the things everyone had said, from the stories from Aiba and Nino and Ohno, that they had been in one. He had been in one; he had spent days of his life inside a similar structure.

It was chilling to watch someone explain the parts of his life that Jun himself couldn't remember.

Sho shifted a little, and his arm went around Jun's shoulders. It felt easy and comfortable to fall against the warmth of him. Jun inhaled a little, taking in the spicy, tangy scent of Sho's aftershave and letting it calm him from the inside out.

"-once the government had relocated to Seoul, rescue operations began to get survivors off of the island, but due to the growing number of Infected attempting to foil operations, officials had trouble discerning the actual survivors from those wishing to impede efforts."

There were boats on screen then, and Jun didn't remember anyone talking about being on a boat- at least, not he himself being on a boat. Sho's fingers tightened on his arm.

"Do you remember any of this?" Jun asked. He was almost afraid to know the answer.

"No," Sho whispered.

When they started showing things covered in black tarp from a shaky hand-held camcorder, Jun looked away, mashing his face into Sho's shirt. He didn't want to see. The more he learned, the more he realized he didn't want to get those memories back.

"Maybe we're lucky," Sho said, like he'd read Jun's mind, though Sho's eyes were still glued to the television set. "I mean, this- it had to be horrible."

"Yeah," Jun agreed.

Sho was silent for awhile, hand moving up to rest on the back of Jun's head. The anchor was still talking about the devastation, the wide swept panic, the way the Infected felt nothing but rage as the disease began to eat away at the healthy cells in their body. And then Sho's fingers were at the back of Jun's neck, insistent and prodding.

"You know," Sho said, very softly, "I don't think I want to watch anymore."

Jun looked up at him, just in time to meet Sho's mouth when it descended towards his own. It was very soft- almost maddeningly so. Every move was languid and unhurried; exploratory, trying to map out the dips and ridges. Jun let his tongue run across Sho's bottom lip slowly, and Sho sighed against his mouth, lips parting in agreement.

Sho's fingers were on Jun's cheeks, tracing over the contours of his face, his jaw line. In the background the program was still talking, but Jun had stopped listening. His world was a static of Sho and white noise, fuzzy and pleasant and buzzing in his ears in time with his pounding heartbeat. The kisses blended together until he couldn't tell where one ended and the next began.

His hand had gone unbidden to Sho's chest, tracing over the stitching of his shirt. The material was thin beneath the pads of his fingers and slid under the skin as he slid his palms over it. And Sho was tugging at his lip, gently, just a little, not needy or grasping but reverently, in a way that demanded nothing but offered everything.

When Jun finally pulled away, he couldn't catch his breath, and wasn't sure he ever wanted to.

He picked up the remote and changed the channel. "I'd rather watch something else," he explained, licking his slightly sore, swollen lips.

"Me too," Sho said, and pressed a kiss against his temple.

Jun fell asleep on his shoulder watching some stupid program featuring large bunny suits, lulled by the easy rhythm of Sho's breathing.


	27. Revolutions in the Sand

The front door opened and closed, bell jingling on the handle.

"Should I tell them we're closing?" Becky asked, balancing several plates on the palm of her hand as she moved them from the washer to the cabinets.

Aiba glanced down at his watch, turned to the underside of his wrist to keep it safer from the soap. "Ten minutes left. We could use the business."

Becky finished stacking the dishes and wiped her hands off on her apron- she'd adorned the plaid fabric with little embroidery stitches in hearts and smiles and tiny pink ribbons, and it made Aiba smile every time he looked over to see it curving gently over the swell of her stomach. She disappeared past the hall and Aiba kept scrubbing at the oil on the frying pan.

"Masaki!" came the call from the entryway. "Can you come here a minute?"

She didn't sound frightened, but Aiba's chest clenched anyway- second nature, maybe, an instinct his mind hadn't completely forgotten yet, and probably never would.

But it wasn't something that went bump in the night waiting for him past the kitchen door, though if Aiba were truthful, it was just as surprising.

"Hi," Toma said. "Long time no see."

\--

Becky got the nice dishes from the kitchen and made a pot of tea. Toma and Ai were quiet when she poured it, thanking her with kind smiles.

"I've been trying to track you down," Toma said, sipping at the still steaming liquid. "It was harder than I thought it was going to be. But you were the only one that I could really pinpoint."

"How are they?" Ai asked. "Did they..."

Her voice trailed off, but Aiba knew what she was asking about.

"Yes. And no. I mean, they're alive. But- they lost their memories. Everything."

"Not everything," Becky admonished lightly. "They're still breathing, aren't they?"

Toma nodded, and his teacup clinked against the table surface a bit. He looked like Aiba remembered, with his hair just a bit tamer than it had been, and some color in his cheeks. Ai's hair was pulled back with a blue clip, tendrils framing her face.

"How was it?" Toma asked, softer.

Aiba shook his head. "I didn't go to get them. I just- I couldn't. If they hadn't made it, I couldn't go back and see them like that. Ohno and Nino went."

He let his finger trace over the sakura blossoms on the teacup. "They haven't really talked about it."

"I don't blame them," Ai sighed.

"But if they can't remember, what are they doing?" Toma inquired further. His cup was empty, and Becky refilled it.

"They're back in school. I think the government is having trouble categorizing what to do with the survivors of the infection. They have to relearn what they had already done before," Aiba said.

"And each other," Becky added.

Ai looked very sad, glancing sideways at Toma with an expression that Aiba couldn't quite read. Seeing them again made him realize how much he'd missed them- and how much they owed the two. Without them, they never would have gotten out of Japan, more or less. As hard as Sho and Jun's situation was, Becky was right; at least they were alive. There were so many who weren't that lucky.

"I can't imagine that," Ai said. "Not being able to remember the person who chose to die with me."

Aiba sniffed a little, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. "I don't know if they'll ever get back together."

"They are," Becky said, and Aiba stared at her. She just blinked a little at him, tilting her head slightly to one side like she hadn't been aware that he didn't know. "They are together."

"What?" Aiba asked.

Becky smacked his shoulder a little, and rose from her seat, grabbing the empty tea kettle to take back to the kitchen. "You don't pay enough attention to what's happening around you. Didn't you see them when they came last month? They kept brushing fingers beneath the table and sending little furtive glances across the room at each other."

"I've been distracted," Aiba said, by way of excuse.

"I bet," Toma laughed. When Becky's figure retreated into the kitchen, he nodded in the direction she'd disappeared down. "When's the baby due?"

"About two months."

Ai reached over to cover his hand with hers, beaming. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," Aiba said, ducking his head a bit to cover the flush. "What about you two?"

"We're getting married," Toma replied.

"Before this whole mess, I told him I'd only marry him when the world ended," Ai laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. "I guess it's close enough, right?"

Becky came back out with some cookies.

"I guess that's how it works," Aiba said, sighing a little. "The world goes on, right?"

"Even when you think it's ending," Toma agreed, and they ate the cookies in companionable silence, until there were only crumbs left.

\--

Becky found him later, after Toma and Ai had gone, standing in the entry way of the nursery and staring into the shadows. He hadn't turned the lights on, but the street lights past the window illuminated the paintings of animals they'd created on the walls, just enough so he could make out the outlines of the dancing zoo they'd made.

"Hey, you," she whispered, curling her arms around his shoulders and kissing his neck lightly. "Where did you disappear to?"

"It's weird, isn't it?" he asked. "How things keep going."

Her embrace tightened a little, and Aiba reached up to grasp her wrist, rubbing the skin there in gentle motions. "I think it always will, for someone."

"Like us?"

She kissed his cheek. "Like us."

They stood for a few moments, quiet, watching the outside lights flicker across the walls.

"Do you think she'll like it?" Aiba asked.

"No," Becky said, sighing and letting her head fall down to rest on his shoulder. "I think she'll love it."


	28. The Beginning

He’s gone to a few family functions, but none of them have been filled with the same kind of simple joy. There aren’t many people here, but Sho at least likes all of the company.

Sho likes kids, and they like him. Then again, the little girl Becky’s holding in her arms isn’t more than a month old, so whether she likes Sho or not would be difficult to ascertain. But one thing’s for sure – Sho has never seen Masaki happier, and that’s enough to make him glad he came.

Aiba and Becky are younger than Sho, yet they seem perfectly at ease and confident. She hands off the baby so she can bring more food for Ohno, and Sho watches Aiba sit with the infant like nobody else is in the room. The smile doesn’t leave the proud father’s face as he cradles her.

Here it is, the new Japan. Moving on, making babies, learning to live and be happy again. The Aiba household could be the perfect example for his father’s campaign to use. Nino doesn’t seem like the type to like kids, but there he is, standing behind Aiba and letting one hand drop down so the baby can wrap her little fingers around one of his. Nino’s smiling again, too.

Jun’s watching, standing and talking quietly with Ohno. He’s not sure what Jun thinks about kids. “Sho?” Aiba’s asking. “Did you want to…?”

He realizes immediately that yes, he wants to. He sits down on the sofa beside Masaki and finally gets to hold her. It’s been a strange year and a half, that’s for damn sure. But he starts working on Monday, a government job sure, but one he applied for and got on his own merits rather than with his father’s assistance.

He’s stopped worrying about the Sakurai Sho he was before – he focuses on the Sakurai Sho he is now. Jun’s still watching but looks away when Sho catches his eye.

Aiba is poking at the little girl’s tiny stockinged foot, playing with the soft fabric. “He’s worried you know.”

“Who?”

“Jun is,” Aiba tells him. “He does that. He always has.”

Sho runs his finger along the baby’s chubby arm and frowns. “Why is he worried?”

“Because things are changing again. You’re changing, too, and I think he worries about being left behind.”

It was true, wasn’t it? He was going to work, Aiba was going to be busier with the restaurant and the baby, and Nino and Ohno were looking into a move to America. Maybe Jun was worried they’d forget him.

“I’m not…” He’s confused. “I wouldn’t...”

Aiba reaches for his camera on the coffee table and prepares to take Sho’s picture with the little one. “Does he know that?”

He smiles when the flash goes off, and when the specks are still clearing from his vision, he sees that Jun’s left for the kitchen.

\--

They go back to Sho’s new apartment after the party. He’s finally out of the house, out from under his father’s thumb. His new life will be lived the way he sees fit. There’s still boxes full of books and CDs to unpack, but that’s something he’ll do this weekend.

Jun’s really quiet as he sits on the floor, poking through the boxes, examining the music. It’s been a few months now that they’ve been seeing each other, if one would call it that. They’ve taken it almost painfully slow. He wants Jun, Jun wants him, but they’re both hesitant. Sho knows that Jun is the most important person he has, the person who understands him best, but it’s hard to overcome the last hurdle.

Sho knows why they haven’t taken that last step in their relationship. It’s easy to fall asleep in Jun’s dorm room with him or here on the futon in the apartment. It’s easy to eat together, talk about what’s going on day to day. What’s not easy is the past they still won’t ever recover.

Sho knows about the scars on Jun’s arms and Jun’s legs, and Jun knows about his, too. Sho knows that Jun is meticulous, determined, self-conscious. He thinks maybe that they should live together, now that Sho’s out of his house. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about Jun, except how to define what he feels for him.

Is it right to call what they have love? Because Sho thinks he might love Jun, really love him. But is it fair? Does he love Jun because they have a shared history? Does he love Jun because nobody else knows how hard it is to roll out of bed some mornings? Does he love Jun because he has a blood-spattered diary that says “I love Sho” in it in return?

He’s been asking himself these things for months, and Aiba’s words ring in his ears - that things are changing, that they’ve spent long enough picking up pieces of lives they don’t remember. Nino would probably say ‘shit or get off the pot’ or something, but with that faraway look in his eyes.

Aiba thinks Jun is afraid of another upheaval, and Sho hasn’t even told him how he feels. Maybe now’s the right time - maybe it’s time to stop thinking about what he and Jun were like before this happened. Maybe it’s time to move on.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he mumbles out loud, and Jun turns to look up at him.

“What?”

Sho just nods. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to live here, and what I want the most is to be with you.”

Jun takes this in, dropping the cd back into the box to get to his feet. “I want to be with you, too. It’s the one thing I’m certain of.”

He didn’t realize how much he wanted to hear that in return, and he pulls him close, pressing his lips to the corner of Jun’s mouth. It really doesn’t matter who Sakurai Sho was or who Matsumoto Jun was. It matters who Matsumoto Jun is, right now, standing in front of him. Whatever a diary says or what Nino says or what others say doesn’t matter. Why has it taken him so long to realize it? He wants this Jun, the person who is as damaged as he is, as determined to move past it as he is.

It’s not fate or expectation or guilt or pity that makes Sho want to be with him. It’s just Jun himself, and that’s really enough.

“I need to tell you,” he says quietly, nervously. “I need you to know that I love you.”

It’s probably not the first time for their bodies, but that doesn’t register because touching Jun, learning Jun feels like it’s the beginning. There’s no hurry, mouths and hands exploring, reveling in the simplicity of just wanting to be together.

“I love you, too,” Jun says when they’re both coming down in Sho’s bed, tangled in the new bedsheets. He wipes sweat from Sho’s upper lip with the pad of his thumb, eyes focused on his. “There’s a lot I don’t know. But there are some things I do.”

Sho closes his eyes, letting the smell of Jun all around him soothe him to sleep.


	29. Forward (Nino/Ohno)

Nino doesn’t try that hard to hide it. Ohno may not notice everything, but he’s not stupid, and the English language software box next to the computer is a dead giveaway. Not to mention the other English conversation books that he’s been checking out of the library.

Nino’s ready to make a clean break with Japan - Ohno can’t blame him. There’s not much here for him any longer, and it’s always been his dream to go to America. Ohno doesn’t want to stand in his way, so he doesn’t say anything.

Finally, one night they’re on the couch watching TV, and Nino nudges him. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Ohno’s never left Japan. He rarely even leaves Tokyo. He’d lived in Kyoto a few years after high school graduation and hated it. America’s a lot farther away than Kyoto. His sister and her husband are here, and his nephew, too. What would he even do in America?

“I don’t speak English,” he says, reaching for the remote control and flipping to a fishing program, something that he knows Nino definitely won’t watch. It’s really the only way he chooses to express his displeasure.

\--

He gets back from the store, and there’s a large envelope waiting in the mailbox addressed to Nino. It’s pretty obvious that he’s been accepted to the program, and he feels a swell of pride that after all this time, Kazu’s finally going to get to achieve his dream.

But where does that leave him?

He lets the envelope sit in the box for when Nino gets back from work himself and heads upstairs. The laptop’s open and he clicks on the language program with a great deal of hesitation.

\--

He’s supposed to be at work. He kind of wishes he’d worn nicer clothes as the secretary waves him forward for his five minutes. Sho’s father sits behind an intimidating desk with an even more intimidating expression.

“You must be Ohno then.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man does look up, and he can see that Sho’s pretty similar facially. Ohno knows that’s mostly where the similarities end. “Thank you again for rescuing my son. I don’t think there’s any way I could truly demonstrate my gratitude.”

Well, that’s why Ohno’s here. “I realize that you’re a busy man, but you have connections that most of us don’t.” He brings out Nino’s yearbook. “I was hoping you could find someone for me.”

\--

They’ve got most of the boxes packed up. Aiba’s going to keep some things in his house since he has the storage space. The program is supposed to take nearly three years, and truthfully, Ohno doesn’t know what he’s going to do for all that time. Apparently the university has a lot of foreign students, and there’s plenty of Japanese in the Los Angeles area, especially now. Maybe he’ll focus on art for a while.

They leave in a few days, and Aiba’s going to drive them to Narita personally. He imagines that he’ll be sitting in the back seat with the baby while Nino sits in front.

But there’s something Nino needs to do before he goes. It’s the only condition Ohno has for pulling up roots and following him overseas - Nino just doesn’t know it yet.

He pulls out the information Mr. Sakurai got him, setting the piece of paper down between them, next to the take-out boxes. “I found him. He’s alive, living outside of Osaka. Already got tickets for the train, so you can’t say no.”

Nino takes the paper with a frown. “I don’t want to see him.”

He’s the one who got Nino interested in film, really interested. There’d be no USC film program, no opportunity in America without this man. The guy’s a bastard, sure, but so are lots of people. All he knows is that Nino should forgive him so he can break with Japan on his own terms. He has to be able to move forward.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

He puts his foot down. This man damaged Kazu. He damaged him a lot, making Ohno wake in the night with the younger man wrapped around him so tight he can barely breathe. So he can’t run away on a whim. Matsuoka made Kazunari this way - made him a person who loves too much.

“Just tell him that you’re finally doing it. That you’re getting out.”

Nino stares at the address Mr. Sakurai found. “I ruined his life, you know. I ruined his career.”

He scoots over, wrapping an arm around him. “I’ll go with you.” Nino just nods.

\--

It’s a rather run-down building. They find the right apartment and go up the stairs, knocking. Ohno stays outside.

When Kazu comes out, he doesn’t even try to hide that he’s been crying. “His wife died. During the outbreak.”

Ohno slips his fingers between Nino’s as they leave Matsuoka’s building. “What does he do? Since he’s not a teacher now?”

“Construction.” Nino squeezes his hand tightly. “I told him I was sorry. He said he was sorry, too.”

“Are you glad he’s alive?”

Nino considers this briefly. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

\--

Nino rolls his eyes when Aiba tearfully hugs them goodbye at the terminal.

“There’s something called phones now, and the internet. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?” But there’s no bite in it, and Aiba just laughs it off.

“We’ll be here when you come back,” Aiba assures them. “Anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask. I can mail you whatever games come out if you want.”

He watches the smile break out across Kazunari’s face. He’s getting better at letting himself just smile when he needs to. Ohno thinks that maybe now he won’t try to hide that part of himself. Maybe now he’ll let everyone see.

They have a plane to catch.


End file.
